The Fall of the House of Mills
by helebette
Summary: Sequel to Tell-Tale Hearts. Between the lines of Season 2.
1. Chapter 1

**The Fall of the House of Mills.**

**Storybrooke: Square One.**

There are times when Regina Mills worries for her sanity. The many lives she could have lived create a cross-flow of both conflicting and complimentary information.

One day, while Emma is running an errand Regina herself requested—transporting herself to another realm for the sake of Regina's magic—Regina forgets herself and curses them all back to square one in Storybrooke.

The spell works in reverse, but it takes Regina a long time to realize that she has not sent anybody away, but has instead exiled herself. Perhaps all of the curses amounted to this in the end—total solitude.

This world is a temporary window, a dream-like sequence, showing Regina what could have been, had she never started to care for anybody but herself…

Square one means that Emma and Regina still fight more than they should, and Henry still just wants to go and live with his 'cooler' other mom.

There is a demon among them and Regina uses an old portal to the Fairytale land she once cursed, to send the demon back. She and Emma open the portal just by touching, which confuses Regina and sends cascading images of some other time (times) with Emma and Henry.

Emma—who, in this reality, is only secretly in love with Regina—gets pulled into the stupid purple hole that opens in Regina's office. Snow White, hating to spend even a moment away from her daughter now that she knows her to actually be her daughter, leaps in after Emma.

"Get them back!" Henry screams at his mother, storming outside. Charming follows the boy after glaring at Regina like this is somehow _her_ fucking fault.

Rumpelstiltskin is still around, but only for a time. His death in a parallel reality—a reality which sees Emma and Regina find happiness together—means that his time in this staggered time sphere is short. He thieves all of the fairy dust from beneath Storybrooke and hands it over to Regina to create a new portal. His ulterior motives are hard to ascertain. He even offers Regina the chance to stop Emma Swan and her mother, and to use the fairy magic to kill them both.

"Why would I kill them, why now?" After weeks spent in therapy, journaling to herself, and meditating without any magic, Regina has lost her taste for revenge and power. It's sort of anticlimactic. Besides that, she has spent the weeks without Snow and Emma almost completely alone. Loneliness has always been a constant companion but this time it cuts too deeply and goes on for far too long. She has not been able to do magic, has already been accused by Henry of 'hiding away and using magic' like it's some kind of drug (which is sort of is). The boy's accusations one day when he visited Regina and saw her levitating the trees in their backyard echoed strangely in Regina's mind—as though someone else had once accused her of the same thing, in the same tone.

"Henry will be yours if you kill Snow and Emma." Rumpel reminds her.

Regina wrings her hands and then smoothes her dark jacket compulsively for a few minutes. She really needs to iron more, she decides. Also, the living room needs to be redecorated. There is a coffee table that would complete the whole…

"Focus dearie…" Rumpel sighs and rolls his eyes. "I've known you for a long time, Regina. Maybe this time I actually want to see you find happiness." He scrunches his nose and bares his teeth at her. "Besides, I can't have whatever else might come through finding its way into Storybrooke. It's too risky."

"I don't…know…" Something tweaks in Regina's mind. Is it really a good idea, to kill her rivals? What does she stand to lose if Henry chooses them upon their return? Then again, who cares—he's already chosen them and if she killed them he'll leave just the same. She decides to see what Rumpel has up his sleeve and then stop it before it's too late. How hard can it be to stop a bit of fairy magic…

Underestimating Rumpelstiltskin's brand of magic makes Regina feel about as stupid as she ever has. Taking in the full impact of every speck of fairy magic in the realm is apparently not an easy thing. Still, she does it, poised before Henry so that he sees her sacrifice, arched in a pained crescendo of green lightning like glass in her veins.

When the magic enters her, it leaves the portal free and safe. And then it's like watching some bizarre birthing ritual. As Emma and Snow climb out of the magical vortex and face her down like two overgrown infants, Regina blinks at them, notes Snow's gratitude, and Emma's sweet smile. A moment later, Henry and James tear past Regina and sweep their loved ones up and away…

Regina is alone again. Alone with the sounds in her head and the vibrating airwaves and sonic catastrophe. Impending doom rises to a crescendo and Regina contemplates destroying the entire world with her magic…

…but something shifts, in the air around them, like a skipped record. Colors flash for a moment and Regina's hears her own voice murmuring in her ear:

"…_I think we need a do-over…"_ Regina hears herself chuckle as well. And then Emma Swan is walking back in her direction, ignoring the throngs of adoring idiots at her heels.

"Hey." Emma is smiling sweetly, oblivious to the fact that Regina is hearing voices now. She waves Regina toward the group now. "Come eat with us. You look like you've lost weight."

They go to Granny's and Regina is forced to stand by while a big annoying reunion screeches and roars around her. Every sound is in fact just like that—something terribly unpleasant. She is so sensitive she wants to hide in a dark place and make pictures with her mind. Only Red notices, touching Regina's arm briefly, only to be rewarded with a jolt of green energy that makes her knees weak. Their eyes meet and Regina fights the urge to tear the wolf's red shirt from her breasts and fingerbang her senseless on the countertop. Except that the term 'fingerbang' isn't in Regina's vocabulary and she realizes quickly enough that the idea belongs to Red.

Her thoughts are not hard to read in her eyes and Red's pupils dilate and flash green like the magic Regina stores inside herself. Their hands linger close by but they are interrupted.

"Hey. Can we all stay at yours tonite?" Emma has the audacity to ask such a thing, after all they've gone through. Emma is now standing in her dirty, well-worn clothes, just between Regina and Red—as though she is staking territory. Over whom, Regina isn't sure. Are Red and Emma sleeping together? Regina wonders and searches the energy fields that suddenly and beautifully emanate from both women. No, they are not sleeping together, but they would—if Regina herself were involved. The thought creates more warmth and Regina steps closer.

"Hey uhhh…it's been a really long trip. Um…can we go now?" Emma seems uncertain, scanning the space between Regina and Red and Red and herself.

Regina shakes her head and breaks the spell. "Yes, of course." She is surprised when Snow, James and Henry follow her from the diner.

Much like an infant would, Emma wordlessly makes demands moments into her arrival. Food. Water. Sleep. Emma's needs have regressed to their most basic point. She wants chocolate and she wants an apple turnover.

"Fucking thing was poisoned, I want a real one now." She scowls at Regina who raises an eyebrow and then goes about making a new turnover.

"What did you eat over there?" Regina asks politely. She laughs out loud when Emma groans. Snow, James and Henry go to their rooms rather than stick around to watch the world's most elaborate apple turnover being made. It is midnight by the time the thing is cooked. Emma burns her lip on it because she refuses to wait for the apple filling to cool. Regina heals the burn with the tip of one finger and they stay frozen in the pose for long moments while each tries to figure out just what they're missing.

It is 1am by the time Regina shows Emma to a suitable guest room. She returns to the kitchen to clean up and finds that she is still oddly wired.

"Tired." Emma mutters when Regina enters the room quietly to check on her.

Emma's arms are bare and uncovered. She sleeps on her stomach and ignores the dark, searching gaze.

"I know. Rest." Regina is filled with warmth that fills her at the sight of Emma's blonde hair, fanned over the pillows. She has no idea where this warmth comes from. It's as though the energy that had felt like glass hours before has turned to liquid, melding with her.

"Hey." Emma stops her, lifting her head slightly. She laughs. "So uhh…pretty funny of us, huh? Uhhh…" She grimaces like maybe the words won't go over so well when they leave her mouth. "You know. We made magic together." Her arms shake slightly and Regina notes it, the extreme fatigue. "Kinda a portal." Emma snickers. "We made a magical…ummmm…"

"What?" Regina feigns confusion though she is frozen in the doorway. She thinks she might know where this is going.

"We made a magical purple yoni just by touching." Then, Emma starts laughing really hard. Regina can still hear her cracking up even as she turns on her heel and closes the door firmly, ignoring the uncouth remark.

There is a flutter in her belly whenever Regina thinks about making magic with Emma. The act is deep and intimate and yet so casual, so easy. As Regina makes her way toward the dining room, her gaze meets Snow White's.

"I couldn't sleep. Also, I wanted to see about those turnovers." Snow says. She wears a white sweater that makes her look like a schoolteacher still.

"You of all people—surely you don't want…" Regina hesitates.

"No, you're right, I don't. I think I'm done with apples for good." Snow rethinks it. "Wine however, that would work well right about now."

They exchange tentative smiles before Regina goes to her wine rack, removes three bottles, and brings them to the table where Snow sits.

They talk. For the first time in 28 years, Regina and Snow speak frankly. Regina has to face the knowledge that Henry's love is inextricably tied up with Emma and Snow's existence. She is too tired to fight riptides like these and wants to learn how she might swim with their movement. By the time Snow goes to bed, it is 3am and Regina feels like warmth in her veins has turned to lava. She can barely stand her own physical existence and wants—needs—to see Emma…

Regina weaves through the hallway, back and forth, in fact creating a longer walk than the walk should be. Then she remembers a story her mother used to tell. It had something to do with facing one's fears, that much Regina remembers. The moral of the story had been: get yourself home through straightest forest past possible. Regina thought, at the time, that it had something to do with avoiding wolves.

"Wolves are protected here, you know." Are the first words out of Regina's mouth when she perches atop the bed, on the opposite side of Emma's snoring form.

"Huh?" Emma shoots awake and grabs Regina's arm. She is gentle, despite her obvious anxiety. She is on her knees, wearing nothing but a pair of panties. Regina can see the moonlight shining against her skin. Emma's back is pale and well muscled. Her hand strokes Regina's arm, tugs her sideways. Gentle. Always gentle now, those hands are. Not like before, when they struck one another.

Regina is falling beneath churning waves now. Emma's lips are sweet as she kisses her, once, twice on her cheek, pressing there for a moment.

Emma, it seems, will now help herself to everything that is Regina's, including Regina herself.

Emma even mutters "Gimme," with a chuckle, when she gets Regina completely undressed and begins to kiss her neck. "This is lovely, this I've looked at…too much talking…" Emma shakes her head, leans down, kisses the fluttering pulse there and strokes her hands over Regina's shoulders. "Hmmmm…" Emma pulls back and stares at Regina's face, at her unfocused gaze.

This is the sum total of every confusing experience Regina has had up until now, and it somehow makes sense of everything.

Someone whimpers, and Regina legs her tongue dart out against Emma's teeth as she pulls her closer. Their heads tilt to the side simultaneously and when their tongues meet, Regina's body pushes upward. They press together and Emma's right arm curves around Regina's waist. Whatever energy the fairy magic churns up inside of Regina bleeds from her pours—from her lips, from her eyes when she opens them to stare at Emma's own green gaze peering back at her as they pull away for breath.

"The sun will be up soon." Emma kisses Regina's lips which are damp and swollen and impossibly beautiful. Then she pulls away and watches as Regina fights sleep, finally relaxing . Regina can only nod, turning over and rolling Emma away from her. They settle together, Regina pressing to Emma's back.

"I'm glad you're here." Regina finally admits. Her hand curves over Emma's belly feeling the vibration of muscles there.

"Yeah, I know you are." Emma chuckles. "About time you admitted it…"

**Wonderland: Remember me.**

Alice, the consort and White Knight of the beloved White Queen, does not always stay long by her love's side. The wonders of—well, Wonderland—do not hold Alice in awe enough for her to restrain her wanderlust.

And when Alice leaves, the White Queen grieves and her pain turns to amber fire.

The Mad Hatter visits and plays tricks to entertain the Queen. When the tricks evoke tears of laughter, they turn—quite accidentally—into drops of poison and a family of possums sitting at the Queen's feet lose vision. Hatter's response in the face of this immense tragedy is, of course, entirely unhelpful.

"Your Majesty, if I may…" He clutches his velvet purple top hat—the one that brings him to other worlds and the one that the Queen will eventually take from him in order to follow Alice—and addresses the caring if now weary eyes of the woman who won the heart of his closest friend.

"Yes…" The Queen's spell has already healed the possum family but now they shrink from her sadness. She tries to smile at the youngest in her yellow smock.

"Your Majesty…" Hatter nearly loses his thoughts but then finds them again, hidden somewhere at the back of his eyes. He blinks and for just a moment, the White Queen is in all black and her hair is piled high and it is dark and beautiful. "If ever a riddle would suffice for a song it is now. Unfortunately, I have neither a song nor a riddle nor a hat stand nor a spell book…" A spell book? He sees one, hovering just beyond the Queen. Now she stares at him patiently and waits, but her hair is short and her—what he wants to call wavelength but what on earth does that mean?—is fading in and out of being and she wears a man's suit vest and the kind of pants he fancies only looser. A song plays just to the left of them. It is a song unheard in these parts and there are screeches of something other worlds want to call electricity—he's heard of this electricity and wants to ignore it, very much so. "If a riddle would do, I would offer it to ease your pain." He feels the hat in his hands slip a little and clutches it more tightly. "Instead I will offer this. A short story. A short story that never ends." He kneels and turns his back to her so that she doesn't see him staring at the multitudes of _hers_ all around. There are hers everywhere now, many, many hers, all of her Majesty and all wearing oddly shaped clothing. "A short story." He clears his throat and is for a moment, very serious and very wise.

"I'm not sure I want to hear your story Hatter." The Queen leans forward and touches his arm. "Is it about me? Do I want to hear such a thing?"

"Not sure. If a yellow hazard hits a wordy beacon and a blind possum finds Alice's sword, we might be onto something. Did you know," He turns to the Queen and blinks. "Did you know that Alice drives a yellow horse in some future world? A yellow horse that is neither alive nor dead."

"Odd and wonderful. I would like to see her in that world." The Queen decides then to take the hat. Hatter won't mind, she is certain, he is fairly in love with helping her from time to time. Besides, it was his idea; it bled from his own mind. He must have known she'd read the thought. "Tell me my story now."

"Your story…" Hatter touches his boots. They are made of a mysterious black substance once taken from the death of the first death and cleaned by the Red Queen's servants. The Red Queen enjoys the death of things and has whole libraries made up of her own thoughts on the subject. The Red Queen's thoughts float like blue orbs. "Your story begins with the loss of your Alice." Now Hatter's voice comes from some other place. He doesn't enjoy this feeling, of being taken over, of the other voices speaking for his own tongue, but it has to happen like this from time to time. "You will be too good for too long and the goodness will overflow with tears that will birth a new you. The new you will be your twin. Your twin went walking yesterday already in a land with flying monkeys…" Hatter laughs hysterically at the flying monkeys he sees in his head. "And Alice was with you many tomorrows ago in that flying land. Today you ride a horse and tomorrow your horse was blue and is neither alive nor dead."

"Hatter…" The Queen speaks quietly and only for him. "When I lose my mind, I hope yours is there to help lead me back to it." The possums scurry from her and retrieve her favorite wand. She rewards them with a lavish feast of colorful bubbling liquids and puffs of purple and green smoke everywhere and then others come in and for quite some time she is distracted by the happiness she has created. The party lasts, in some memories, for a million moons.

By the time Alice returns—with tales of ships and far away lands and a satchel of some mysterious brown powder—the Queen is happy again. The castle is full of song and voice so the two women sneak off onto a balcony to share a kiss amid the perfumed mists and flowering vines.

"I'll stay a long while now." Alice promises.

This has happened before, this promise, and usually it fazes the Queen very little. But now…

Alice steps back, an alarmed look in her eye. There is brown mist rising from the brown powder in her satchel and the Queen leans into it and sniffs hard. "How unpleasant," she says, at first, but seems to change her mind quickly. Her eyes swim with purple and her pupils become large and when she presses herself to Alice, their kisses bruise.

Later that night, they slumber in the Queen's chambers, both without clothing or shyness. Their arms are tangled and their legs brush together.

Neither notices the other slipping in and out of their world in sound waves like a fading radio station in a modern world where they dream together anew.

**Storybrooke: Tell-Tale Hearts.**

The problem isn't the end of the world. The problem is that dreams of new dreams were not always consistent. Some wanted revenge for how horribly the old world had treated them. So in the outskirts of the spaces Rumpelstiltskin had destroyed, the survivors are all mixed up between dreaming for what they need and raging against old pain. In all of the mix-up, more and more of the creatures of the old world are sent to find the town of survivors where magic is strongest.

In between killing dragons and raising other dragons, learning magic and taking care of Storybrooke's many magical needs, the so-called Charming family travel between worlds to retrieve tools, ideas, songs, spells, and other useful items.

One such world is a world once shared between the daughter of the Charmings—Emma Swan—and Regina Mills, the woman she loves. The woman she loves was once an Evil Queen but she also was once a Good Queen and so many have forgiven her for her awful deeds. Now, Regina and Emma live with their son Henry and with Emma's parents, James and Snow White.

One night, in the middle of a long vacation-like time, Emma and Regina enjoy, Emma breaks the news that their happiness will need to be put on hold. "We have to go to Foreverland sooner than we had thought." Emma tells Regina this while Regina leans and dozes against her in the bath.

"Don't go…" Regina finds herself whining. She hates whining but why must she be left behind so many times? Her eyes roam over Emma's skin and she notes the numbers of freckles and beauty marks and small scars and beautiful ridges which she sometimes thinks are so endless that she'll never memorize it all.

This time, Regina has a good point. The cost of Emma, Snow, James and Henry's ticket to Foreverland, are many of Regina's good and happy memories.

"We need your magic and you need what we can bring back." Emma reminds Regina before dipping her hands into the warm water and finding the curves of Regina's hips. She pulls and slips Regina atop her, sinking deeper so that she can look into dark and oddly saddened eyes. "We'll be back as quickly as we can, but your coven needs those scales and the Windigone dragon lives only in Foreverland. Besides, there are rumors of survivors in between the fold of their world and the old one. If we can reach those people maybe we can bring them here. Once we return, we'll find a way to give you back your memories."

"What if I won't let you? What if I won't believe you?" Regina shifts her hips and slides a thigh between Emma's legs. This has its desired effect and Emma gasps and rocks against her.

"I…" Emma whimpers as Regina's lips latch her breast as it bobs out of the water. "You'll remember. You always remember us in the end…" Distracted or not, Emma wants to see Regina's eyes. She nudges her lover's chin upward and kisses her lightly. "I'll never leave you Regina. I will always return for you…"

So _temporarily_ Emma leaves and takes with her all that is left of Regina's family. Red is around to keep Regina calm and to keep an eye on her. Red changes into a wolf more and more these days and when Regina goes for nighttime walks and tries to remember a time when she was happy, the wolf stays at a safe distance.

During the weeks that she is alone, Regina sleeps very little. When she does sleep, she dreams dreams of green fairy dust that rises from the ground and enters her veins like cool absinthe.

Upon her family's return, something goes terribly wrong. Having been suddenly so reluctant to give up Emma and Henry for even a short time, Regina's resistance had nudged the portal opening spell a little too far. Many of her memories are reticent and reluctant to return. She forgets herself and her existence bleeds strangely with Rumpelstiltskin's memory curse from another time and place. Emma, Snow, James and Henry enter Regina's life again with the knowledge that they have been a family for years now, but to Regina, those memories are an abyss into which she throws her grief and her loss.

"What did you do, babe?" Emma begs Regina to tell her, watching as the edges of Storybrooke bleed and expand into the desert beyond.

**Storybrooke: Canon Fire.**

The third portal opens at a time when Emma and Regina continue to wallow in their avoidance of any fate that could find them both happy. Having spent their time fighting, their rage spills over and nearly kills their son. Henry's reawakening also spells the end of Regina's curse and when the townspeople come for her, Emma is there only as a good and righteous defender—no more. Since Emma blames Regina for the near loss of Henry, Regina loses custody of the child and spends her time lonelier than ever.

The second portal opens quite by accident, when Mr. Gold (he is ambivalent about being called Rumpelstiltskin for some reason) sends something straight out of a Harry Potter book to suck Regina's soul from her body.

In an effort to save Regina at Henry's urging, Emma helps to fight the creature.

They need to open a portal to send the creature back through, but Regina's magic is weak until Emma's hand on her arm somehow jumpstarts things.

But then, like an idiot, Emma falls into the portal without meaning to and Regina finds herself shoved aside so that Snow White can go after her daughter.

Weeks go by without Emma and Snow, until one day when Mr. Gold creates a portal to get them back. Of course he also_ curses_ the portal because it is simply in his nature to trick everybody into doing the wrong thing. And since his curses are always tricks in themselves, the magic that he uses is a powerful prize for any who would take it on.

Spurred on by Henry (who seems horrified when he realizes that he may have asked his mother to die for Emma and Snow) Regina takes on the full force of the portal's green fairy magic, interrupting Gold's stupid and contradictory plans, and showing Henry once and for all that she can sort of maybe become 'good'.

Whether Regina has proven herself or not James and the rest of their friends, abandon her to celebrate the return of the Savior and Snow White. The abandonment is about as logical as anything else—which is to say that it isn't logical.

The Charmings celebrate their victories while Regina is left to walk home alone after nearly dying for their stupid cause.

In the meantime, and despite her own idiocy from time to time in this realm, Emma finds herself worrying about Regina while she's out for dinner with half the town. One of the 7 Dwarfs is hitting on her—she thinks he might be Happy because he giggles at everything she says. Thankfully Red is there and she keeps the drinks coming while Emma tries to figure out why she feels so out of sorts. Sure she's happy to be back with Henry, back with James, back with Red…

…something is really off though. Emma's head pounds when she thinks about Regina and her sacrifice.

"Regina took all of the destructive magic that Mr. Gold planted in the well to kill us—took it all into herself!" Emma stage whispers in Red's ear. She has had three double gin and tonics and is nursing a pint of stout which Red keep switching for water when she's not looking.

"She also went along with his plan at first. Be careful Em, you're starting to sound like you trust her…" Red swivels the glasses back around when Emma slams down her beer. She manages to convince her friend to take a bottle of water for the road after failing to convince her to sleep it off upstairs.

"Imma…walking home." Emma declares her intentions with a flourish and proceeds to walk away from Snow's apartment and toward Regina's house. Then she rushes back in, a moment later, and finds Granny. She orders two grilled cheese sandwiches and two pieces of pie, says its for breakfast, and then smiles broadly at the still celebrating group while perching on a bar stool. For a moment, despite her strange and growing feelings of confusion, she is just really happy.

By the time Emma weaves through the dark streets of Storybrooke and arrives at Regina Mills' mansion, she has eaten half of a grilled cheese sandwich and is ready for sleep.

She finds Regina sitting on her front stoop.

"It's late. Aren't you cold?" Emma asks, feeling stupid, because Regina is surrounded by green flame and doesn't seem cold at all. "I brought you a sandwich." She adds unnecessarily. Her smile is goofy and sweet when she thinks about Regina saving her and Snow. "I brought pie also…" Emma adds.

Regina's eyes, lit like emeralds, are the last thing Emma remembers seeing before passing out. The last thing she hears is,

"I think we need a do-over, Ms. Swan…"


	2. Chapter 2

**Nice people! Ok so the reviews and the feedback have been awesome. You've all been so supportive that it makes me a little gooey inside:) I'll keep writing this confusing story until Swan Queen becomes even more canon than it already is. In the meantime, I hope your enjoy the meandering. PS. When 'canon' is in the sub-title, it means that we're in the Storybrooke where/if Emma and Regina aren't yet lovers. When Tell-Tale is referenced, we're in a direct continuation from Tell-Tale Hearts. Voila! **

**Storybrooke: Tell-Tale Nightmares.**

There is a mysterious group of children in Regina's bedroom. They are all dead, of course, and their ghosts are playing some sort of hopscotch. She thinks they may have been killed by her mother but she isn't sure. She is talking to Emma. They are angry so they are both wearing pajamas as a sign that there won't be any funny business tonite. Which is fine, since there are ghosts in their room.

Regina shakes her head and returns her attentions to Emma. She asks:

"Why is forgiveness so hard for you? Why can't you stop hating me for mistakes I made…"

"Just last night?" Emma interrupts. The mistake in question will haunt them for awhile but it isn't the end of the world. Regina forgets herself in this world. Forgets that she is happy, with Emma and Henry, even with Snow and James.

"Just last night, ok, fine, but what am I supposed to do—you don't trust me, this relationship is basically over…"

"This will never be over." Angry as she is, Emma smiles when she gets up and walks out of the room. Twenty minutes later, she returns and settles into bed again. A glass of water is on Regina's side of the bed and Regina has a brief moment of wondering if Emma somehow transported it without her seeing.

"Why water?" Regina asks.

"It's the only magic I know about." Emma settles against her but their arms remain at their sides. Still angry then.

Often, Regina dreams about Emma. They are always in some parallel reality—divorced lesbian moms with absolutely no trust left between them. Regina has already determined that this should have been their experience, had she not cursed away their relationship in its dying days in a prototypical phase of Storybrooke's existence.

The dreams are agonizing, because no matter how close the two women are to healing their pain, they are always miles apart. Sometimes there is even a large canyon between them, filled with acid and floating fish mush. Emma's subconscious is a drama queen sometimes. Like the night she shouted to Emma across a flaming bridge: "I don't know how to love very well!" Like _that _makes up for everything.

Usually, Emma just stares at Regina in these sorts of dreams. Sometimes she screams and runs off—terribly out of character so Regina knows for sure that it isn't _really_ Emma. But this time, she shouts back. She says, "Love again…Maybe I'll be lucky…maybe it'll be me…" before running away from the flames.

The next night is the same dream, only this time the bridge of flame is back to being a canyon of acid. Emma only has to speak softly, because it is eerily quiet in this world.

"Remember me," Emma says. She is, at first, wearing her usual dark leather jacket and boots, but for just a moment, Regina's vision swims and shifts and Emma is wearing the silver armor she wore in Wonderland…once upon a time…

"Regina!" Emma hisses now as a dark, flame encased demon sneaks up behind her and she is forced to shove it away with the butt of her sword. "Remember this! Remember me…in your body, in your heart...We can start again someday…" And then Emma is taken by the creature into the acid and Regina can only scream and scream, because she knows that if she uses magic to save Emma, it will somehow change the whole world and neither of them will like it…

She is still screaming when Emma wakes her.

Snow White often tells them, "You'll remember again. You both have to have faith."

At the edge of Storybrooke, there are four blue orbs. Regina tells Snow that they are disembodied spirits. Ghosts are indeed becoming a massive headache for their small, isolated town. The barren desert beyond the edges births new and old monsters at once.

Regina also has nightmares increasingly about her mother. She also dreams about the blind witch, as though Cora and the cannibal who feasts on children are one and the same. Both women are monsters, trying to consume Regina, to destroy her very existence. In one of Regina's dreams, Cora says, "I gave you life, I'll hand you oblivion just as easily."

With new magic comes new responsibilities. Regina and Emma still make mistakes. All kinds of them. There are nights when Regina wakes and paces. She is increasingly convinced that her family lineage is evil and that she is destined to repeat at least some, if not all, of her mother's mistakes.

The ghosts had begun to arrive soon after Regina, Emma, James, Snow and Henry returned from the lost land.

Emma could see them, from time to time, and Red could smell them, but Regina felt every chattering, murmuring, shadowy apparition the most.

"You're not losing your mind." Emma mutters at 3am, when Regina shoots awake and screams, just as she has done every single night for a month. "There really was some dude walking by our bedroom. I'll tell him to please leave."

They put protections around the mansion. James and Snow take the second largest room, far from their daughter and the former Queen. James used to come running when he heard screaming, but now he sleeps through it.

Emma wraps her arms around Regina and presses her to the bed. "I have you." She tries to reassure, to sooth, but she is already falling asleep by the time Regina relaxes against her.

**Storybrooke: Canon Fire.**

There is a day, many weeks after Emma's return to Storybrooke, when the town is without its Sheriff.

Sharing a joint with Red behind Granny's is ridiculous enough but the four or five tequila shots she mixed with it all, makes her sort of nauseous.

Which is still not as nauseous as being called the fucking _Saviour_ every day makes her feel.

Drunk and stoned Emma makes her way to the Archie's office and stands in front of it, staring up at the windows. As if on cue, Regina walks outside, looking just as lost.

"Sheriff?" Regina walks toward the swaying blonde and takes her elbow. She seems to consider something devious but then shakes her head and says, "Let's go."

So Regina drives her home and parks next to the yellow VW, waiting for Emma to get out of her car.

"No. Yours." Emma mutters, smoothing an invisible series of wrinkles from her red leather jacket. It takes a minute but then she hears the engine roar to life again and they back out and Emma realizes that she got herself as fucking inebriated as she did just so that she'd have the courage to find Regina…

"Archie tells me that…I've been…wired somehow, on magic and power…" Regina tells her, a half hour later, bringing cups of tea to the kitchen table. She sits and grudgingly continues to share: "I have some sort of addiction, I suppose."

"To magic?" There is a long silence.

Then Regina rolls her eyes. "No dear, to crystal meth." Her eyes glow an eerie emerald green but Emma misses it, so wrapped up in her own confusion.

Emma is led to the living room couch where she falls into a fitful sleep, still buzzing and sick. She dreams of stumbling through the streets and ending up at Regina's house again only this time it morphs into an enormous castle. Regina greets her at the door in some incredibly over the top red satin dress and invites her inside.

"What kind of land is this?" Emma asks Dream-Regina. She receives no answer but just watches as the Evil Queen turns on her, eyes flashing red as she makes the kitchen's contents fly and swirl around them both.

"What does it mean Regina?" Emma shouts now in her dream. She screams and screams but Regina never answers her questions. Soon the castle is falling around them, stone walls crumbling, wood slicing and splintering.

The real Regina tries her best to wake Emma, calling her name from afar. When Emma does jolt out of her nightmares, she finds herself face to face with the Evil Queen.

"I'm not. Who are you? Why did you do…" she gasps and leans against the woman who is, after all of that, really just Regina. Not really the Evil Queen. Not anymore. Certainly not with her arms around Emma's trembling form. Her hands are warm and soothing on Emma's back. Caring little for the implications of it all, Emma tugs Regina down to lay with her. The room spins a little as she faces the back of the couch.

Against her, Regina is stiff for some time. Then her arm relaxes around Emma's waist and her hand cover's the clenched fist beneath Emma's chin.

"This all should have all gone differently." These are the last words Emma hears Regina say before sleep overtakes her again.

**Storybrooke: The House of the Evil Queen.**

There are times when Regina's loneliness pushes her close enough to that edge, to that place just before she snaps and makes an absolutely terrible decision. Then she pauses, breathes, and makes no decision at all. Limbo becomes a familiar sort of home.

Archie encourages her to keep moving forward—in part out of genuine fear himself, that if she doesn't start taking steps in her own life the whole town will eventually pay. Again.

"You don't' want to see the Evil Queen again." Regina rolls her eyes and scratches her nails lightly on the bug's—_Archie_'s—couch.

"No, I do not." He admits. "But I don't think that you do either and I just want to help you to find something new. Something different. You've been given such an opportunity Regina." He says things like this to her all the time. It makes Regina feel a little less numb toward him. In fact she's beginning to like this bug just a little.

She leaves an especially difficult therapy session—in which she admitted to some of the 'liberties' taken by her husband during their shitty arranged marriage—one cloudy Tuesday morning. The school bus whooshes by her and suddenly the world goes quiet. Absolutely silent.

Until there is only the emerging sound of a radio fading in and out , static obscuring the sounds of some old song. Well old for this world anyhow…

"_Will you still love me tomorrow…"_

Amy Winehouse. Regina likes her music. She very recently realized that she had have broken her vinyl collection during one of her magical binges, so it has been awhile since she heard Amy sing…

"Amy died the year you and Emma nearly split up…" Regina's own voice seems to whisper in her ear.

"What?" Regina snaps at the ghostly version of herself. "I didn't break up…I mean we were never together…"

Then the world whooshes back into color and sound and Regina is left stunned on the sidewalk.

"Mom?" Henry's voice now.

Regina can only stand and stare. She has no idea where or when or who she is all of a sudden.

"Do you know where I might find the Hatter? I might have something he requires…" She asks the young boy politely, as though he might know where her mind went to play.

"Mom!" the boy suddenly shouts at a blonde woman just crossing the street to join them. "Mom!" He sounds again, "Mom…I mean other mom…I mean she's acting weird. Someone must have done a spell on her."

"'Gina?" The woman stops and stares.

She looks awfully familiar…

"Alice?" Regina asks her politely. "Where have you travelled to this time? Are you in the looking glass or in my mind or…" she cannot let herself hope that Alice has actually joined her in the world of the dream. To believe such a thing is to believe in shadows instead of Really Real. Really Real is just to the side of the shadows—around the bend in fact.

"Regina…" Alice calls her another name. But yes, Regina was sort of her name, when the witch came to visit and gift her with a piece of the future. "Are you all right?"

"Alice, I do not like the company you keep." Regina explains. She gestures to the boy, "I rather like this one. But the others. Uncertain."

"Ummmm…okaaaaay…" Alice apparently seems to decide on something and much less nervously sits on the front step of the store just behind them. "Tell me, who would you like me to stop seeing?"

The question is too direct and too linear and therefore it isn't a true question. So Regina ignores it.

"I'll simply veto the ones you have already discarded." Regina says.

"Veto?" Her Alice laughs. It Is a beautiful laugh. Perhaps she really is here and not at all stuck in the looking glass. The things they used to do…

Regina blushes and stammers and her hands grow damp.

Then the world freezes again. It swirls and sways. For a minute or two, Regina could swear that she had become another sort of Queen. A dangerous Queen—the kind she became after ending her own life…

"After you died." Regina mutters, clutching her head. "Alice…Emma…please…"

"_Let's get you home…" _Emma's voice slows and sounds all warped like one of Regina's bent records.

**Storybrooke: Canon Lines.**

The party organized by Snow White is a thinly veiled attempt at setting Emma up with Bertrand Eggersfield. Bertrand is attractive, wealthy, single, and good with children.

He was also Humpty Dumpty in Snow's old land.

This minute detail makes Emma laugh her ass off.

Still, he and Emma get along just fine. Bertrand has high chiseled cheekbones and wears a Michael Kors velour purple jacket and black shirt with a Dolce and Gabanna silver belt buckle and jeans. He looks at her dress (an ivory form fitting Chanel number stolen that Emma doesn't remember buying) appreciatively and his smile would suggest that their night might end well for both of them.

But then the bells above Granny's front door clang rudely and the spell of happiness is broken.

Snow's first thought, when she sees Regina, is that this is just like that time she stormed in on the Charming wedding right in the middle of their vows.

James draws his sword—but then realizes that he has no sword and so stands there stupidly with his fist in front of him.

"Regina, what is it?" Emma is the only one who is neither afraid nor hateful of the former Queen turned Mayor turned disgraced isolate. She thinks that she knows what might be coming though. Judging by the way Regina stares at Bertrand, it's entirely possible he'll be turned back into an egg at any moment. In the meantime, Ruby cranks the music—to cover their argument and distract the rest of the partygoers. The song hits a crescendo—something about everybody having a dark side which is so totally appropriate—when Regina advances on Emma and says with a smile:

"_Veto_…"

Everyone else blinks and stares stupidly, but Emma seems to know exactly what Regina is getting at. Rolling her eyes, Emma turns on her heel and makes her way to the bar. Bertrand makes a move to follow her but she holds up a hand and shakes her head.

"Veto?" Snow's features are scrunched up in confusion.

"Yes, veto." Regina leans on the table where Emma slumps with her drink and glowers. "I veto that man. He's…" she seems to falter at the need for logic.

"Fine. While we're talking about vetos, I veto that idiot chef." Emma mutters but Regina hears just fine.

"All right. Well then I'm also vetoing Henry's father…" Regina's words come just as the blaring Kelly Clarkson song ends.

Silence falls heavy over the diner patrons.

"Regina, you can't just…" Snow falters, though it's obvious she isn't rushing to defend Emma's choices. "Henry's father…I mean…what?" She stares hard at her daughter. "Is he around somewhere? Your father and I would like a word with him." Her last sentence is delivered in a menacing tone which startles Emma.

Regina chuckles. "Your parents agree. He isn't good enough for you. For Henry I mean." Regina interrupts herself quickly, still staring hard at Emma. "I'll also add number 3 while we're at it…"

"My turn!" Emma leaps back to her feet, her boot heels clicking hard on the tiles.

"Fine." Regina stares hard at her.

"At the same time then…" Emma's arms cross and she holds out a hand. She counts down from five and they both shout in unison:

"Hook!"

"Hook…"

Emma's mouth falls open. Then she clamps it shut and nods.

"Mutual veto then." She pauses. "Perhaps he doesn't count toward the final five?" Even as Emma nods and Regina smirks, the tension now gone between them, James throws up his hands, calls them both ridiculous—as though he is angry they're even getting along which he totally is—and storms out of Granny's.

Two weeks later, Regina is on a date with a banker named Vlad who was some ridiculous vampire in a previous life. The date takes place in her own home so Emma finds them easily enough. The dinner Vlad was supposed to have eaten includes some of Emma's favorites. So when Emma herself shows up and mutters 'veto' in Vlad's general direction, she is all too happy to actually sit at Regina's table and eat the meal intended for Regina's date.

"Sorry." Emma has the audacity to say with a smirk that she hopes is up to par with Regina's standards. What she finds in Regina's expression shocks her. There is something warm and affectionate there and it makes swallowing suddenly difficult. She stabs a forkful of her favorite potato dish and wonders if Vlad could have possibly appreciated it all.


	3. Chapter 3

**I have no idea why half of this chapter happened, it just did. NC-17 warning. I don't know, it's the magic's fault. **

**Ok, so just like in the Tell-Tale first part of this ongoing story, the characters are living in different threads of reality. One thread is sort of more prominent or 'real' (the thread marked by 'Tell-Tale' in the sub-title) or…maybe it's the reality they're working toward in the other threads. It's partially Henry's fault but it's also partially just how reality works in this story. But anyhoo, yeah, just to explain, they're not dreaming or anything (dream sequences are marked by italics:)**

**Thanks for reading and for the reviews. I write this crazy story for my own benefit but I hope one or two others like to read it as well:)**

**Storybrooke: Tell-Tale Story.**

There are destroyers of life with far greater ambition than any enemy Regina, Snow or the rest have ever known. Rumpelstiltskin is gone, replaced by a plethora of terrible things that rushed in to fill the void in his absence. In this reality, the one that glows the brightest, their only enemies are supernatural.

They all have work to do. There are creatures from other worlds which seek to make Storybrooke their home. There are gods and demi-gods and demons and dragons and pirates and ghosts and even a family of really annoying vampires…

Far from being tested only as warriors and magicians, Regina and Emma are tested as parents as well.

Henry flits in and out of their reality, finding portal travel as fascinating as Regina did in her youth. Worse, he has become addicted to time travel. It takes them all a long time to realize that all of his travel affects the numbers of threads they have to actually experience.

One morning, at about 4am, Henry arrives in their kitchen, soaked to the bone and covered in a thin layer of ice. Regina hears his arrival first and by the time Emma stumbles out of bed, throws on a robe and stomps downstairs, the teen is already encased in a warming spell designed to ease hypothermia. Regina is within the bubble and so Emma is left to make tea and breakfast and fuss about as best she can while her partner rocks their grown child like he's an infant again.

"What the hell Henry?" Are the first words from Emma's mouth when the spell comes to a gradual end.

He doesn't speak though; he just shakes his head and stares at his hands.

"What is it sweetheart?" Regina looks cold now. She pulls bare feet onto her chair and reaches to clasp Henry's shoulder, kneading gently.

"I've messed up." He sniffles, actual tears starting to well up. "I can't stop doing it. Can't stop with the travelling. It isn't even portals anymore. And I can't stop. And I'm really screwing you guys up and this family up…" His voice hitches every few words.

What he also doesn't realize, not right away, is that all of his time travelling and portal hopping has amounted to something. Something like actual redemption for the mother once known as the Evil Queen, and something else that looks sort of like growing the hell up for the White Knight in the family.

They still have to work to do as a family, but it's the chaos they create together that make every possibility real.

Chaos theory is one of Regina's new hobbies. She has been reading about it for weeks.

"Are you really going to read about quantum physics on this rare day off from tending to our dragons and trying to figure out who those vampire idiots are draining?" Emma is the first to ask while they putter around their bedroom, dressing and putting on makeup and doing their hair after their early morning taking care of Henry. She lays back on the bed, wearing only her bra, her jeans and her tall leather boots, and contemplates sleeping the day away. The idea bores her though, so she bounds up again and intercepts Regina on her way to the bathroom.

"Not all day," Regina concedes, turning as Emma's arms slip around her waist. "We'll go for a hike, how does that sound?"

The trio spend their morning at Granny's, letting others serve them copious amounts of hot chocolate, coffee and tea, despite the lack of value that money actually has at such an establishment. Granny and Red use their diner as a meeting place now that payment is unnecessary. Sometimes Regina helps Granny with the spells she needs to board up the place, but for the most part the trio is welcome without anything asked of them. Today Red and Grumpy host a discussion group on the dangers and benefits of elf weaponry while Regina, Henry and Emma read books quietly on the edge of the discussion.

"Lord of the fucking hobbits around here today." Emma mutters to Henry who guffaws and spits out his hot chocolate in response. She glances at Regina who purses her lips and pretends to be annoyed at Emma's profanity.

After they leave to go for their walk, Regina ducks back inside to remind Granny that the town's alarm system will need testing soon. She is treated then to a blasting of sirens and whistles and beautiful sounding bells amidst the cacophony. Regina waves in thanks as they walk away laughing.

Their hike doesn't last long. None of the three bothered to dress for the part—Regina even wears heels. But the woods are sunny and brighter than usual. Henry veers in the direction of the dragon compound to visit with his now 2 month old dragon whom he has named Lily, which makes Emma snicker because the dragon is already massive and can wipe out a large house with a sneeze. Snow is doing a teaching session at the compound and waves cheerfully from where her pupils are measuring the thickness of already hatched egg shells. She and James have been camping nearby for a few days and Snow promises to drop by for dinner the following night.

"Well that was lovely," Regina grimaces as she steps over a pile of dragon dung. "And wonderfully short."

"Let's eat." Is Henry's cheerful reply. He seems happier as the day goes by. Happy to be with his parents when others his age would rather be together. It's largely because he has been homesick on his many travels.

They trade work shares for groceries at one of the markets in town, giving Emma the dubious honor of weeding Grumpy's stupid pumpkin patch in exchange for dairy products.

"We should get a cow." Emma decides.

"Let's just do our chores." Which is easy for Regina to say, since hers usually involve magical arts lessons.

Henry makes them dinner which means mac and cheese. It's his specialty and he only does it when he's trying to impress people. Emma tries not to notice Regina fussing with a strand of his hair—it is grey and there are more like it peppering his sideburns.

"I think you've reached the end of this road kid." Emma's tone is anxious. Really anxious. Regina gives her hand a reassuring squeeze when she retrieves their plates.

It is early that night when Regina puts a sleeping spell on Henry, intended to keep him in place but also to provide him with much-needed rest. The magic done to repair his body has taken its toll on Regina herself, who shows up in front of the tub where Emma lounges, shivering and wired. Her eyes glow purple and Emma sits up quickly in the water when she sees it.

"It's tepid. Let me get out and warm you up in bed." Water streams down her body as Regina looks her over. "Or I could warm you in other ways?" Regina nods with a slight smile which sort of looks like a grimace. "It has been a few days."

"I'm either going to have to fuck you through the bed, or I'm going to have to go for a run…and then maybe destroy something massive, like a car or two." Regina laughs breathlessly, still shaking. One time, when she was wired like this, she found an abandoned parking lot and made the cars smash into one another in the air for hours before Emma could find her and calm her down.

Regina pounces as soon as she can get Emma near enough to the bed, but not before doing something odd with her voice to make the room sound proof.

"Oh damn." Emma knows she's seriously in for it.

When Regina gets Emma pinned on the bed, she makes her way immediately down her body, kissing and nipping quickly until she can get her lover spread wide, legs up in the air. The magic in Regina's system residually pours into Emma, lengthening the time their caresses last.

"Geez Regina." Emma grins as she holds her knees but her grin soon turns to a moan as Regina's tongue flattens and licks her from her clit down to her ass and stays there, flicking in small circles. Minutes stretch to hours until Emma is vibrating so hard she hears the bedframe crack. "Careful…" Emma moans, but Regina just flicks her wrist and fixes the damage.

Regina's eyes ask for permission as her fingers circle Emma's clit in the same rhythm that her tongue moves to. Emma nods in a daze and then Regina is up again, opening the bedside table for the smaller of their toys and for her favorite harness and, of course, for the bottle of lube she'll need…

"Regina we're going to have to deconstruct your need to fuck me in that particular part of my body one of these days." Emma quips even as she wriggles and writhes beneath Regina's slick fingers. One hand delves into her pussy, the other into her ass, and occasionally Regina's mouth dips down to lavish attention on her clit, until Emma finally nods to Regina's hips.

Emma can't move—can really breathe—when Regina moves inch by inch inside of her, past the tight ring of muscle. All she can do is hold onto Regina's sides, run her fingers gently over shifting muscles, and stare intently into the brown eyes that hold her gaze.

Then that line is crossed and Emma takes back over. She feels rather than sees the magic seep from Regina's fingertips into her own body. She smacks Regina's ass—hard—and growls, "fuck me harder goddammit!"

This is what Regina needs. Not to dominate but to be fought with a little. Emma gets into a really particular state when Regina touches her in certain places—as though she's actually angry at how turned on she can get. Angry and ashamed and aroused and as in need of being cuddled as she is of being pushed around or…something…it's elusive…but it makes Regina's hips piston roughly even as she searches for signs of any reticence on Emma's part.

"Goddammit." Emma says again. "Out. Get out." She just means the toy, but for a moment Regina is worried. "I just mean _there_. Get out of…no, wait, keep inside…dammit I don't know…"

"Ok, it's ok. Whatever you want is fine. I'm going to pull out now…" Regina moves gently to do just that, until Emma is empty and wanting again. "What do you want baby?"

"Everything." Emma's voice is low and dangerous.

There are positions Regina didn't know they could try, things she didn't know would get Emma so turned on, but they do everything they can to get the magic worked out of their systems over the next few hours. It ends with Regina's sweaty form fucking Emma leisurely from behind with a double-ended toy that slips in and out (mostly out which is really annoying but makes them laugh and break up the intensity) of their pussies.

"Why do people call it pussy in this land?" Regina asks breathlessly. Emma still hasn't come, and neither has she, but no one seems to mind.

"Ugh, I don't know." Emma can feel beads of sweat pouring down her back as she laughs. Regina's hands still brace on her hips but Emma twists until she can both discard the toy between them and pull Regina down into a hug.

"Water." Regina croaks.

They check the time and realize that it's still only 9pm. Which feels sort of lame. So Regina comes up with the bright idea of going for a run together.

"What's your problem? Just bring your gun and I'll bring a bag of fairy dust." Regina talks fast as she dresses in shorts and a tight t-shirt. But Emma is suddenly quiet…

When Regina gets to the window where Emma stares and stares, she knows that their sudden burst of energy will have to be burned off in other ways.

"Another stupid battle." Emma sighs. "Let's get the windows…"

"Already on it. Call Granny, tell her to sound the alarms." Regina claps her hands and a burst of light swims from her tented fingers and covers the exterior of the house.

Outside, the demons that have gathered begin their monthly destruction of Storybrooke.


	4. Chapter 4

**Storybrooke: Tell-Tale Heart.**

It is a sunny, Spring afternoon when the first of thirteen purple and gold hybrid dragons emerge from an egg tended to by Emma Swan and Henry Mills.

Henry is saved from the slime that erupts from the egg when Emma steps in front of him. He is so overjoyed at the occasion—his very first trainable dragon—that he immediately peaks into the future to see what becomes of the relationship.

"Henry's off again!" Emma shouts as she clomps into the home she shares with Regina, Henry, Snow and James. She wears silver armor and about a gallon of slime. Her sword is still in the weapons room. She hadn't needed it today.

She meets Regina in their backyard, just as Regina exits an alternate reality portal designed by and for her coven. There is an audible popping sound when Regina closes the white room behind her.

"What is that in your hair?" Regina asks in all seriousness before being swept up into a crushing embrace. "This is disgusting, I'm not fooling around with you until you wash the dragon afterbirth from your skin. Really, Emma…" Her voice is muffled against the only spot on Emma's neck not currently covered.

Emma laughingly agrees to take a shower but insists that Regina come with her. They take their time removing the armor and placing it by the backdoor. Emma walks quickly back into the house, wearing only her underwear, closely pursued by Regina.

A guest room downstairs is easiest to reach without spreading any more of the goop from Emma's now shivering form. Regina makes the water hot and gently pushes her partner in before sliding the glass door behind her. This is her favorite guest room and it's also the one they sometimes use when one of the women is sick or sleepless or when they have one of their rare but firey fights and have to spend a few hours apart.

Regina scrubs long blonde hair while Emma chatters on excitedly about the dragon young and their mother.

"Henry's dragon is already really alert!" Emma cranes her neck around, tries to see Regina's expression, but she gets soap in her eyes and swears. "Dammit! And the mom wasn't too protective…"

"You earned her trust. Now let me finish." Regina's arms wind round Emma's waist while they rinse. She lets herself be held beneath warm water when Emma is finally clean.

When they emerge, Regina throws extra towels her way, only to find the other woman using the bed to dry off instead. She rolls her eyes and uses her own towel to squeeze excess water from her hair.

Emma bounds on top of the bed and turns quickly to grin at Regina. "Ugh, remember our last fight? That one sucked." Her hands wander over her own torso, her eyes intent on Regina's as they roam.

"You were angry because I lost my memories. Again. Really, it was your own fault."

"Hmmmmm…" Emma watches Regina fuss about, running her fingers through damp hair and ensuring that absolutely no stray strands find their way on the floor or anywhere on her body. Regina is neurotic and a neat freak, but Emma checks herself as well and smoothes a few strands of hair from the bed before pulling the sheets back. Sometimes doing little things to make Regina happy is just a whole lot better than fighting about nonsense. Despite her best efforts, however, Regina is now on a roll…

"Really, you and the rest of your family are obsessed with portal travel. It leaves me out. If you could just stay still for longer than a month or two…"

There is a split second when Emma realizes that the wrong response could lead to a doozy of a fight. Her forehead scrunches in confusion for a moment but then she just shrugs and says, "Ok. I promise."

That shuts Regina up momentarily.

"We don't need any more Silver-Scaled Tree seeds from Elfish Land?" Regina asks the question in the sweetest most lilting tone, as though such a tree and such a land actually exist.

"Ummmm, no, we don't. I don't think. Do we?" Emma takes the robe thrown at her with a scowl and watches as Regina leaves the room chuckling.

That night Emma stays up later than Regina so that she can visit with Granny and Red and make sure that their outer defenses are well stocked with food and other supplies. When she returns, the moon is high and shaped like a crescent and she has a beer in the backyard and gazes at it.

Joining Regina in bed at this late hour usually finds the other woman sound asleep. Not tonite.

"Em?" Regina whispers in the darkness. Emma finds her and kisses her cheek.

Regina pauses. Then she whispers again:

"_Alice?_

**Storybrooke: Canon Fire.**

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves far too much. Regina feels about as far from their merriment and gossip and aimless cheerful wandering as she ever has. She sits in her car and clutches the tea she made herself and brought from home.

Now that they are all convinced that she killed Archie—well there isn't any reason to make her presence known. They are celebrating his life or some stupid thing while she tries to avoid the despair she feels at his death.

She has become a specter, a shadow among shadows. She experiments with invisibility spells but cannot mute her car's stupid motor and nearly hits a few people. Oh well. She doesn't really find herself caring.

It had been a day or two without magic and then Regina had snapped. Now, it has been three days _with_ magic. Lots of it. She smiles and leans back, stretching her neck, before starting the car.

She loves making magic to the music of this new world. Her secret fetish for listening to The Doors is so secret she herself doesn't admit how much she enjoys it to herself.

"_the killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on…"_

She has always wondered why the killer in this song worries so much about his fucking boots…

"_He went into the room where his sister lived…"_

Regina remembers killing somebody's sister once. She crushed her heart and licked the ashes from her palm while the family watched…

"_Mother…I want to…"_

She laughs softly as the street turns to purple lava behind her. Images of her own mother flash before her eyes as the purple haze fills her senses and the lava turns back to concrete and the sky bleeds blue and grey over blazing trees.

She_ had_ to use magic again, it couldn't be helped—not when Henry wanted her to retrieve Emma and Snow so badly. And then, when he left her, she had to use magic to convince him that she had changed. That she would die for Snow and Emma.

Then, when he flitted off into Snow's home. Even when she had risked it all…

When he chose Emma over Regina…

Magic seemed like the last option. The last thing and now only thing that would soothe her weary soul.

A quick flick of her hand pours water from the clouds over the fires she started.

There are spells to find direction to the old land. There are also spells to find portals before the portals are even made. Regina tries all of these and finds herself in front of a cave. This, however, is too obvious—a trick planted by another sorcerer. Her eyes blaze trails over a wounded and terrified landscape. The glint of amber gives away the opening. Inside is a spider. Regina remembers that in some parts of this world, a spider is known to have woven entire universes. She begs of it to give her the power to weave one now…

Six hours later, Regina projects her astral body into her old land, and before her enemies can recognize familiar trickery, she has a handful of their peculiar form of fairy dust and then she comes back through the portal. Regina re-enters her body, then promptly blacks out, thrust between two realities at once.

When she comes around, Dr. Whale is scratching in a clipboard and Emma is sleeping in a chair next to the hospital bed that holds her captive. A handcuff jangles and clanks against the metal bed. As though _that_ will stop her.

"I want to go home." Her voice comes out like a whistle. Emma wakes abruptly and the doctor smiles grimly at Regina.

"Welcome back. When you've had solid foods, I'll release you. You were severely dehydrated when you were found by Sheriff Swan," he gestures toward the blinking, sleepy woman who stands next to Regina's bed, utterly disoriented. Whale looks guiltily at Regina for a moment and then rushes from the room.

The next morning, Emma returns with Henry. The moment the three are in the same room, Regina accidentally brushes against Emma—later she realizes that they sought each other out—and the flowers in Henry's hands turn to butterflies.

Henry wants to confront her about Archie. To ask if she really did it.

"You promised." He cries hardest at the magic that bursts forth from her. But it isn't just Regina's magic—this is Emma's blend as well.

For three days in the hospital, Regina tries to stop using magic and she tries to face her fate without it. The withdrawal hits hard all over again. In the throes of boredom and feverish rage, she dreams of magical forests and long-forgotten creatures. There are nightmares about the unicorns, their hearts like ash in her hands, staining her.

She also dreams about Oz and about Wonderland and their greenery blends together and the yellow brick road turns to acid and all the Queens laugh at Regina, at her failings and at her meager powers which are so much less than theirs. When she awakens she immediately bursts from the hospital room in a puff of purple smoke, determined to find the secrets her mother once held, determined to become the most powerful Queen in all of the realms.

**Wonderland: Shades of Storybrooke.**

Once, when she was still the White Queen, Regina set forth in all her armor to rescue her bravest Knight.

Alice was deep in the trees and she had likely fallen into some sort of time loop. It did happen when they weren't paying attention, or when Alice stopped to hear a riddle or two or ten.

She found her lover and protector by a large fire in the middle of an empty place.

"Why have you stopped here?" She asked curiously. It wasn't for her to meddle in the White Knight's affairs, or vice versa. "Also, where are your clothes?"

The story was too long so it didn't fully need to be told. The Queen decided to disrobe herself, laying her armor carefully next to the flames.

"Why did you wear such things? You no longer fight." Alice looked worried.

The Queen realized the answer as though it only just had come to her. "I'll need them soon enough."

"This is all ending." Alice admitted tearfully. "I see it now."

The firelight was witness to many changes. And change was upon them.

"Promise me we'll return some day." Alice begged as they lay side by side. Her Queen's kisses had already begun to burrow into her neck, but Alice pushed her away briefly. "Promise me."

"It's too late." The Queen muttered against her breastbone. Her hands lay Alice flat on her back and her body covered and shielded the Knight. As they moved together slowly, Regina said it again, "It's too late. Your wishes have already come true."

"What does it mean?" Alice was far too logical for her own good. Even as she gasped and moaned and even as her Queen's fingers thrust inside her, she had to ask questions. "Does it mean we'll return in the same form or something new?"

Finally the Queen grew worried. "If you keep asking," She said, "You'll make up too many possibilities for us to even fulfill. Be happy with the same numbers of realities as you have fingers and toes. That way you'll never lose track." She said this with some hopefulness as though it might actually be true.


	5. Chapter 5

**Storybrooke: Days Anew. **

"I'm sorry…" After all they've gone through, Regina has to say it. Again and again and again and again. Even if she was fated to do what she had done, even if the Savior was fated to fix it all.

"You've apologized enough…" Emma isn't comfortable with apologies. Some people use them as a quick fix and when that happens, the apology gives way to a repeat of the same behaviors. She worries. Worries that Regina will just revert back to the person she once was. Besides that, punishing a person never does fix the things they did wrong.

"After all I've done to harm you and your family…" Regina winces at the simplicity of her own sentiments. She jams her hands into her coat and takes on that familiar pose—defenses up, fists clenched, pain contained in the scowl that darkens her gaze.

Emma surprises her by stepping closer. Regina knows that Emma trusts her very little. Why should she trust the person who killed Graham, tried to run her out of town, tried to frame members of her family for invented crimes, tried to send her to an eternal sleep? Still, Emma is always kind. Her words are kind now. Beyond kind—her words make everything feel _right_.

"You _are_ my family."

Now there is so much energy between them that the magic within has begun to push outward, to find it's other.

**Wonderland: In the beginning.**

When they first meet, Alice is still only 17. The White Queen had retreated many, many years earlier, to a land beyond the Queen of Hearts' borders. From there, the White Queen summons Alice for a game of cards which she starts without Alice and so by the time the girl arrives, the game is won. The Hatter arrives with Alice and squeals with delight at the outcome.

"Well you would have done very well." Are the Queen's first words to Alice.

Alice is confused by just about everything in Wonderland. Her last time there, as a small girl, is extremely fuzzy in her mind.

"What is your name?" Alice asks. The Hatter had simply told her that she was late for her fate.

"Some call me Dorothea. Some call me Queen. Others call me Regina, but they haven't been born yet. Well…some of them have been born but they're quite lost. To me. Not to themselves." The Queen stands close to Alice and looks at her hair. She remembers a time in the future when those blonde curls will cascade over her and she smiles. Still, she thinks it best not to tell Alice about it all just yet.

"Dorothy? As in Oz's Dorothy?" Alice snickers and swipes at a fly that hits her in the nose. The Queen grasps her hand quickly and watches to see that the fly is still alive.

Alice has her own room in the Queen's castle. She finds gold and silver gowns and slacks alongside a cupboard with shirts of chainmail. The Queen lets her find her sword in her own good time.

They walk and talk every day before tea time. Alice tells the Queen of her plans to travel, to visit exotic places. She decides that Regina is her favorite name to call her odd new friend. This pleases the Queen.

Alice turns 18 in Wonderland and Regina puts on an enormous party. There are strange creatures and playing cards and chess pieces wandering the halls of the castle. There is dancing and wine and more dancing and then at the stroke of midnight, Alice—who is quite tipsy on some cake someone has given to her—leans over and kisses her friend on the mouth.

The kissing opens something like a portal inside the Queen. She sees her future more clearly, including other lives she will live. With Alice. Always with Alice.

"Sometimes you have other names." Regina sounds amused. They are laying beneath a willow tree by the side of a river. Alice is breathless from the kissing and other things. The Queen's fingers still dance across the softness of Alice's belly. Their clothes lay nearby and they are left quite alone by other creatures.

Except for one…

"What is that?" Alice asks, sitting up slightly. The Queen's eyes darken for a moment, watching as they do for some small change in Wonderland's fabric.

"It is a deadly Oval Viper Fish." Regina moves until she can sit behind Alice. She makes her lover lean back against her bare chest, so that she can stroke exposed skin in the sunlight and soft curves that fit in her palms.

"Stop it!" Alice shouts. Regina takes her hands away but the girl protests. "I don't mean touching me, I mean that fish!" The Viper Fish had set its sights on a small nest of baby bird's that it somehow is able to stalk as it swims. The fish takes a swimming leap, arcs into the branches, and promptly swallows a baby while they watch.

"I cannot interfere." Regina's smile is suddenly terrible and Alice scrambles away from her. "How can you know life, Alice, if you don't also know death?"

"You could save those birds." Alice fumes, gathering up their clothes. "You're their Queen as well. I thought you respected all creatures?" She swears. "Fucking Wonderland. What the hell kind of fish hunts birds in trees?"

"The Oval Viper Fish—which is also a creature of this land." Regina sighs and stretches in the sunlight while the carnage continues. It isn't her lack of interference that gets to Alice the most—it's the fascination, even delight, Regina displays in the face of death.

"But you're supposed to be good!" Alice tries again.

"What is good? Who is good? I promise to do many terrible things before I'm ever good again my Alice…"

"Then I won't be your Alice any longer!"

"No?" Regina looks startled at last. She sits up and then stands, not at all nervous about her nudity. "I thought you would. Alice…have you changed?" For the first time in her existence, the Queen doubts something. Doubt roots strangely and takes some new form within her.

**Storybrooke: After the Return. **

When Regina tells Emma that she was home all evening—that she could not have killed Archie—Emma can only back up some of that statement.

After Regina left Granny's the night before, Emma stayed a little longer. She ate cake and drank more beer, and so by the time she found herself sneaking off to say 'hey' to Regina, she is a little tipsy.

Regina wonders why the apathetic woman standing on her doorstep is bothering with this check-in, but she lets her in quickly.

"What is it you want, Ms. Swan?" Regina sighs, tired of her own silly games now and adds, "Emma?" Her arms are crossed in front of her but she sees the Sheriff sway a little and so moves past her to the kitchen. Emma stops her.

Regina isn't prepared for what happens next, but loneliness is physical as much as emotional, so when Emma's lips mash against hers—tasting like beer and sweet sugary vanilla—she allows it. More than allows it. She revels in it. Emma chuckles when Regina's moans become louder and her thighs open so easily beneath insistent hands.

For her part, Regina doesn't give a damn. She ends up naked from the waist down and spread on the couch. She tries not to wish for more. Tries not to wish for this to be drawn out, perhaps even romantic and instead tangles her fingers in Emma's hair, rides Emma's mouth, feels herself swell and harden against Emma's tongue, blushes at the enthusiastic cursing swears the other woman mutters against her flesh, and then comes…

…just like that it's over.

The next morning Regina is framed for the murder of a man whose death makes some thrumming grief glow brightly within her.

Even as she argues with Emma, she wants so badly to be believed. She sees her own heartbreak reflected in Emma's eyes and that is what breaks her.

The icing on the cake comes later, alone in her car, watching heartbreak ripple out to destroy the only people she has loved in this cursed place.


	6. Chapter 6

**Storybrooke: Canon Shots.**

Daily life is a grind.

No, too cliché.

Regina wonders when she started having such ridiculous internal dialogues with herself.

A grind.

Grinding.

Loneliness presses on her from every angle. It is pressure that doesn't cut. Not yet.

There are things she can hold onto. Routines. Coffee is an art form. Every morning, when Regina walks downstairs in her grey robe, she wonders how they ever survived without coffee in their old land.

She has read all about the industry itself—the injustices that occur when entire nations become 'useful' for only one export. She has also read that soon, in the very near future, coffee will become so scarce that a cup will cost what a glass of wine should cost. It all makes her wish she could grow the beans herself.

When she grinds the beans in a large stainless steel mill, she stifles a yawn and looks lazily out the window. There is boredom, yes, but this land still sings to her louder than the Enchanted Forest ever did.

The town greeted Emma and that idiot Snow White yesterday. And in their infinite gratitude for Regina's foolish heroism (she still has no idea what all that fairy magic will do to her in the long run) they have completely ignored her.

No one invites Regina. Of course they must be afraid she will try something stupid. Then again, why bother? Surely they all will realize it soon enough…

_They have won_.

…and the biggest secret of all…

_Regina doesn't give a rat's ass. _

She laughs loudly in the quiet of her kitchen.

She only cares about Henry. Well. Henry and perhaps Emma…

When had Emma become anything more than a nuisance to her? Regina cannot tell. But somewhere along the way, she started to care for the woman. It had been seamless, the transition—from hatred to some strange truce.

It was Emma who moved them so smoothly through—when she said, 'what do we do' like they were a team. And Regina is secretly grateful for it. Just as she is grateful for Henry's life, even if he won't speak to her very often.

Yet. She has to remind herself—Henry won't be a part of her life _yet_.

Isn't that the definition of love?

If you love someone, let them go…

If they come back to you…well. Who knows.

Outside her window, a sparrow lands and pecks at the seeds she left. There is a moment—just a moment—when she thinks she sees the bird look right at her. It twitters, some song about gratitude and the end of some tired existence.

The curse is gone now and Regina's relief is greater than she had ever anticipated. It is greater, even, than her loneliness.

**Storybrooke: Canons and White Knights. **

There are piles of paperwork waiting for Emma when she wanders into her office in a daze after only one full day back in Storybrooke. David, apparently, doesn't _do_ paperwork.

Somewhere halfway down the pile is a report that grabs her attention. A custody arrangement between two parents—a mother whose oversight with an unbuckled car seat led to supervised visits. Emma scoffs at the whole thing but then thinks it over. An unbuckled car seat is a stupid mistake, one which could have led to something terrible, but denying visitation because of it?

It wasn't as though the mother _poisoned_ her kid.

There is a burst of irrational anger and what Emma recognizes also as self-righteousness. A minute later and the energy has dissipated and Emma is left feeling more confused than before.

She has been denying Regina her parental rights just totally unilaterally and nobody seems to find fault with this. Then again, it was just kind of a natural progression—taking Henry upon her and Snow's return. And from the sound of it, Henry had already chosen David over Regina. Something had happened between the former Prince and Queen of the Enchanted Fairytale Fucking Forest or whatever it was called.

Still, the question of access would have to be revisited.

"Fuck." Emma speaks aloud. She's happy to be back but life also seems needlessly complicated in this place.

When she returns to the apartment, she takes a quick shower and bundles up in a grey sweater that is perfect for this damp, cool time of year. She talks to Henry about school and how things have been with David but she keeps it light. When Snow and James—_Mary and David_—arrive she makes some excuse to leave and ends up halfway to Regina's place before she realizes that she's going there to check on her.

She tells herself that she's just asking about town business or something. The need to be close to the other woman is still buried far enough beneath the surface of things that Emma can almost fool herself. The words Regina spoke to her return: _Welcome back. _

The words echo in Emma's mind and she feels her heart thud painfully.

Regina lets her in without a word. She looks happy to see Emma. Actually happy which is crazy because it's supposed to be some big hate-off between them or something…

Emma manages to say, "I was wondering…" before Regina presses her shoulders and shoves her back against the door and kisses her in a bored sort of way. There is nothing romantic about the gesture, so there is no reason for Emma's heart to thud _again_ like it does. Regina smirks like she knew this was going to happen.

Emma's head tilts to the right and she opens her lips wider for Regina's tongue, letting her own brush again and again against the back of Regina's teeth.

_It's just sex_, she tells herself. Just sex she wants, nothing more…

So why is it with _Regina_ of all people? Because it sure as fuck isn't going to be with Archie? Who knows. Emma doesn't think about it beyond that point. She just helps Regina out of her clothes and pulls her in again when she's mostly disrobed. The skin of Regina's back is smooth and well muscled against her palms—her ass fits perfectly in Emma's palms. There is something strategic in every move that Regina makes. The discarding of her bra is a show all in itself.

"Damn, you're in good shape!" Emma pulls away to gasp briefly. She remembers to be slightly overwhelmed when Regina rolls her eyes and just rips at her clothes in response. Or retaliation. Definitely retaliation, especially when her shirt is torn open and buttons go flying. "Hey!" Emma lets herself be pulled toward the living room while Regina kneads her breasts overtop her bra. Emma's sweater is still on, her jeans are undone and around her ankles and her underwear is hastily shoved aside…

"Woah!" Emma laughs breathlessly at the first sweep of Regina's tongue. "Oh fuck…Yesssss!" Regina's mouth feels like heated silk against her labia and her tongue is soft and wet and perfect over her hardening clit. She doesn't want to come like this though, not with Regina at her feet. It isn't close enough somehow.

For her part, Regina feels as though she is being too aggressive and too clumsy all tongue and teeth and clambering across Emma's lap to straddle her but she can't help it. It's been too long since she last got laid and worse than that whatever the _hell _Emma Swan has opened up inside of her is like a neverending portal to some place she has never been…

"Wait, wait…" Emma is gasping against her mouth, smiling with those adorably imperfect teeth. She has an incisor that sort of juts out a little and when Regina kisses her again she is sure to lick a line over that sharpness. Then Emma is gasping and moaning again, clutching Regina's hips and rocking against her. "Wait!" She tries to stop them again. "This is weird, isn't it? Should we be doing this? Why does it feel so goo…mmph!" It doesn't just feel good it feels familiar.

This time Regina pushes and pulls until Emma is beneath her and she can yank off that awful granola lesbian sweater.

"For goodness…are you wearing _patchouli_?" Regina grimaces. "Reliving our knitting circle, soy milk drinking days are we?" her muttering makes Emma laugh, which is good, because she can't help this sarcasm that bleeds from her mind and out through her lips. Filtering. She hasn't yet learned it.

They kiss again, longer and slower this time, as Regina helps Emma out of the rest of her clothes. Then their legs are sliding together and their hipbones are sharp and their bellies are soft and Emma tangles her fingers in dark hair as she moves atop a deliciously vocal Regina. She becomes fascinated with Regina's scar and her lips and her shoulders and she is gentle and reverent, not rough or needy, not like Regina is.

They make it to the couch in the living room, Emma on top at first, Regina's legs splayed wide. Then Regina flips them and they're on the floor and she grinds hard against Emma's pubic bone, bracing herself with her palms on either side of those blonde waves that spill everywhere.

There is kissing and long moments of closeness but then Regina feels far away again and it all becomes wet kissing and needy and all pulling and pushing but somehow Regina gets the upper hand first and grasps one of Emma's thighs, hauls it up and over her shoulder….

It stings a little, but the pressure is good and Regina curls her fingers just right, fucking her with two fingers, then three and Emma just lets her, simply looking up at eyes glazed over with desire and confusion and cupping Regina's face in her palms. Emma curls into her, biting her shoulder, and Regina buries her lips in the sweaty groove of her neck and cups the back of Emma's head as she fucks her much more gently to draw out her orgasm.

When Regina ends up with her legs spread and Emma between them, she begins to realize the implications of their actions. It is hard to avoid thinking too much about things when another woman is gazing between her legs and doing nothing else.

"I've not really done this before. With you I mean. I mean I don't think I have." Emma continues to stare at the intricate details of Regina's pussy in total fascination.

"You don't think you have? What does that mean? Of course you haven't…" Regina's words trail off and she gasps as Emma's thumbs spread her.

"It means that you smell familiar…Is that weird?" Then Emma leans in and licks lightly and decides that Regina also tastes familiar. She rolls Regina's clit between her lips and sucks gently, licking up around with the tip of her tongue to find the spot that will make Regina moan the loudest. It isn't like being with any other woman. Emma knows that she was wrong to think she could come here and get laid without any consequences. When Regina shouts against the hand she has clamped over her own mouth, Emma gets up immediately.

She has to go. Not just because she has work to do and parents to spend time with and a kid to have lunch with and whatever else, but because the distance has already grown again—the distance between herself and Regina with her haunted darkened gaze. Still, there is something that beats deep within her for Regina and she can't just leave…

"Do you want to come to Granny's for this thing we're having it's like a return sort of party or something but anyway I'm sure Henry would really like it if you came…" Emma blurts the invite out despite Henry really having very little to do with it. Well, the kid _did_ wonder if sometime they _might_ invite Regina like a normal family would do, and Emma had said maybe someday but not like in _two days_.

"Yes." The hopeful way Regina's eyes light up makes Emma wince. "Did Henry really ask…"

"Yeah he uh…so gotta go. Thanks um, for you know." Emma is rushing away before more questions can be asked. Now Regina is arching an eyebrow and there comes that familiar smirk. "I'll see you…"

"Tonite?" Regina is glowing and relaxed, one hand on her chest, the other on her thigh. She looks lonely.

Something about it all makes Emma's stomach swoop and her throat ache.

"I ummmm…" Emma smiles and says in a pained voice, "I'll see you…soon."


	7. Chapter 7

**The Fall of the House of Mills:**

**The Tides Turn.**

When Regina plays chess with her mother, she remembers that deals made with the Queen of Hearts often have bizarre consequences.

"Only a little more time." Cora says. "A little more time with my daughter." She slides the pads of her fingers atop the black knight, teetering it in its square before making her move.

"You died." Regina tries to remember. Her own knight was already lost in this game. She looks around, curious, as a flock of blue birds twitters and then rushes overhead. A cloud of dark, perfumed lavender rises from the ground.

"You can bring me back. For a time. And a price." Cora's words are lost in the sound of sudden rushing water. Her dress is suddenly black and tight, her hair is lighter and loose around her shoulders. Regina blinks and then Cora is wearing her mask again.

"A little more time." She can't help it. She does want every minute she can take, every last second with the one person whose death had broken something so deep inside that she hadn't even realized the impact. Nightmares, anxiety attacks, these are frustrating enough, but when Regina realized that the aging process had finally caught up to her…well _that_ was the final straw. Emma had called the fine lines and emerging grey 'adorable'. Fuck that. Regina saw it all as signposts of impending death.

Besides, she can't remember why the hell Emma Swan would call such a thing adorable. Oh. Right. They're together and all. The world is ended and they are together and it's so right and yet somehow something is just _off_. Regina stares hard at the White Queen on her board. It is unyielding beneath her gaze. The problem is clear to her…

It's Cora. Regina needs her mother.

So Regina agrees to the terms of their deal, hours before the sea takes them and transports them back to Storybrooke. There, they do have time again. It is heartbreaking only because it is all so brief.

One week after Cora's subsequent death, the residents of Storybrooke are infected with a strange affliction.

"Rage, like a virus, can grow exponentially." Cora had said this on one of their many walks by the water. Cloaked in magic, hidden from vengeful and hypocritical residents, Cora's

After Cora's death, Emma aims her own confusion in all of the wrong directions. This reality isn't the life she signed up for. It isn't the world she expected to inherit when she fulfilled her Savior obligations.

Even Henry turns on her. To top everything off, his bumbling perpetually childlike father is back in their lives. Anger becomes a slow blooming flower whose stem winds round Emma's neck inch by inch. Emma's rage begins to match Regina's own.

They have old wounds that need excavating. In time, the pain of Regina's many horrid acts hit Emma.

"It's like getting spitballs fired at the back of your neck in detention." She compares Regina's many, many deeds to this obscure memory. Snow patiently listens to her, but she can't quite understand the significance of detention or spitballs or feeling trapped in place while someone makes you slap your own face with your own hand over and over and over and over and over…

In this world, Regina is trapped with the consequences of her every evil deed.

"You killed Graham, you tried to kill me, you tried to kill my mother—again and again..." Emma hisses this while holding a hand against Regina's neck, pinning her to a wall in the back of Granny's. It is 3am and Emma had been doing her rounds when she spotted Regina still at the counter despite the place having closed an hour earlier. Working the night shift is weird enough without magical law breaking. But here Regina was, drinking her wine, shrouded by some mysterious protection spell.

Now she holds Regina still, totally against any legal duty on her part, and grimaces as she squeezes.

Her other hand moves beneath Regina's skirt, so slowly and subtly they almost easy to pretend that it isn't happening. Except it is happening. Emma _is_ fucking Regina with one hand on her throat. They are hidden away but the threat of being caught is turning them both on more than either will admit.

Blunt nails bruise Emma's wrists and Regina's eyes flash purple in the darkness.

By the time they're finished, Emma has a cut on her neck from where Regina bit too hard and there are bruises on her wrists. Regina herself is, of course, unscathed.

"You'll have to do better than that next time, Sheriff."

This is actually the most that they say to one another for months.

In this world, they don't remember that they are lovers—partners, really—yet they cannot avoid one another.

Whenever Emma has an angry recollection of nearly being poisoned, or of Regina trying to kill Snow, or of some other dastardly deed by the former Mayor, she grits her teeth and clenches her fists and wills herself to stay the fuck away from Regina.

One Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight, Regina uses magic to fling Emma into the back of her car. They drive to the woods and Emma parks in a pile of wet leaves and mud, spinning briefly before realigning the car and turning off the engine. Regina is on her the second she removes her keys. It is all Emma can do to work her thumb, at an odd angle, against Regina's clit after unzipping her slacks hurridly and wrenching them as far as they'll go…

"You fucking love it like this…" Emma mutters, surging against the woman who thrusts against her.

"You fucking wish." Regina growls and then comes, crying out against Emma's forehead and pulling painfully on her hair.

Regina's moods are ever changing. Sometimes there are storms in her wake, and it isn't just some metaphor. A giant wave washes inland one afternoon when Henry argues with his mothers about custody arrangements and dinners apart. When Henry decides to live permanently with his grandparents, his mothers' combined frustrations result in a windstorm that devastates half the town.

This version of Storybrooke is reality constantly unwinding, constantly degrading.

As a result of her storm's destructive aftermath—or at least Emma suspects as much—Regina is downright cheerful the next time they see one another. Midnight sees Regina arriving at the Sheriff's station, long after all of the lights have been dimmed. With a confident smile, she kneels carefully on the scuffed tiles, unbuttons Emma's jeans, and politely waits for her to lift her ass from the chair to help a little.

As Emma tilts her head back, she thinks she hears Regina say, "all this, just for me…" before stroking between her inner lips with light flicks of her tongue. This time, when Emma surges, it is not against unyielding denim and a selfish lover, but silken strokes and skilled tongue. It is good. Really good. Emma comes twice, the second time more intense, one leg up on her desk while Regina eats her thoroughly and messily.

Still, the anger grows all around them. It infects the dreams of other worlds…

Unfortunately, Henry falls back on a promise to see Regina for lunch two days later, and things go back to square one. After witnessing an obscene amount of insects raining from the sky, Emma manages to track Regina down as she sulks in her old office. They stand and stare and then Emma uses magic to slam the door behind her while Regina throws a ball of flame into the fireplace.

"Fuck you." Emma snarls when her clothes are cut from her body with a wave of purple smoke.

Regina laughs unkindly and shoves Emma against the wall while she removes her own clothes and bends immediately over the desk. Her palms spread over the surface of it and she spreads her legs.

The tears start when Emma thrusts two fingers, dry and cool within her, and says something snarky about Regina's pathetic need to spy on the town. There is all of the old equipment out, in plain sight, and something about it makes Regina go numb.

Emma stops thrusting—she had been close, pressed deliciously, wetly, to Regina's ass cheek while her fight hand drew more and more moisture, digging and sliding and stroking Regina's cunt.

Then there is surrender. Something breaks and there is another small defeat of Regina Mills. "Please don't stop…" Regina says, turning until her cheek is against the cool marble, facing away so her tears can't be seen. For whatever reason, Emma is gentler than usual this time, and she's much more concerned with the other woman's orgasm than she is her own angry desire. They don't say a word when it's over. They just do up their clothes and stand close together for a moment before Emma leaves.

A week later, Emma is called to deal with a mob at the grocery store. Regina had been doing her shopping for the week when three of the Dwarves circled her, calling her a hag and a witch, and naming all of her crimes. Yanking Grumpy back from the fray, Emma scowls, confused, watching their sudden attack and wondering why no part of it pleases her. Regina looks absolutely defiant and doesn't even flinch when the shop keeper won't take her money. She just counts out the exact change and bills and flings them onto the counter.

Emma follows her home, at a safe distance—_just in case_, she tells herself. She hovers by the shrubs, stares at the exact spot where Regina once flung her. That magical act of aggression had hurt for weeks. There had been bruises, but nothing felt worse than knowing that their fragile alliance had so easily been destroyed.

When she knocks at the front door, Regina lets her in without a word. Emma doesn't know why she kisses Regina so gently, why her hands are so caring. She knows only that she gets shoved for her efforts, shouted at, and called some really unique names, before finally stomping away from the house again.

It is a full month before anybody sees Regina again. Emma sleeps with Hook exactly three times before she realizes that he is a replacement for something else. For someone she desires much more. She tries harder to stay away from Regina after this fucked up realization.

Besides, there is been rumor of a man in Regina's life, and Emma tells herself that it's for the best. Nevermind his odd habits—sleeping all day and coming out only at night—it is the disappearing teenagers that really makes Emma go after him. She tells herself that her interest is only in the safety of the town, but other suspects fall by the wayside and she spends a sick amount of time watching Regina's beau in his nightly rituals. Except none of it matters, because the moment Emma is able to link the disappearances to the dickhead her (ex?) lover is fucking, he is chased out of town by a waves of purple magic. The magic follows him as his silver pickup truck with its heavily tinted windows, screeches over the border. He passes Emma on his way and when she gets out of her car to watch him, he brakes suddenly just past Storybrooke. The purple has already stopped and dissipated and he stands in the sunlight, blinking, utterly confused, before making his way back to his truck and driving away for good.

This time, when Emma finds Regina, it is almost tranquil. At first.

She slides open the front door of the mansion and walks in quietly. There in the kitchen, Regina is bent over, wearing the same outfit she wore the day she tried to send Emma into an eternal sleep for-fucking-ever with the apple tart.

Emma is careful, though she knows Regina can tell that it's her. She calls out, "Hey," before stepping behind Regina. Her eyes stray to the countertop where pies and preserve and a pile of actual wooden stakes are scattered about.

"I told him I'd kill him but that if he left town, he'd change and become fully human again, but first he'd have to unearth the bodies he buried in my yard…my yard! Dammit!" Regina shouts and flings her hand and the stakes fly across the room.

"He knew no one came here. No one would look here. That kind of crime—not your style. So why look here…" Emma swallows hard and steps closer. Regina is like a livewire. When she flicks her wrist to turn the oven to a higher temperature, there is an audible cracking sound.

Then there is some kind of bend, some strange wave of electricity and sound and the room tilts…

"You said I was evil. You said I couldn't change. Why the fuck are you here?" Regina is screaming from somewhere just behind Emma.

Emma stands and watches as one version of the woman she sort of hates but can't avoid, makes apple turnovers and talks about the weather, while the other version spins around her in a black flowing dress, setting fire to the house.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" The one in business wear and an apron is now noticing Emma's paralysis. She frowns and steps forward, one hand hovering an inch from Emma's chest.

The room goes grey and the radio clicks on.

When she wakes again, Regina is right back where she started with the turnovers. She is still cutting apples. There are no fires. There is no electricity in the air. The radio is playing. It's Bruce Springsteen. Something about the song makes Regina pause. Emma steps behind her, wishing she had worn jeans. Her hands palm Regina's hips, erasing the faraway look in her eye. The song is short, it reminds Emma of a summer's day, the summer she first realized she had a crush on the 16 year old girl next door…

'_At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet, and a freight train running through the middle of my head…'_

She kisses the back of Regina's neck. A lock of dark hair tickles her nose. She nudges it aside and mouths any skin she can reach. A moan dies in her throat at the realization of how much she's missed this—missed Regina, missed her scent, the feel of her, the little sounds she makes…

'_you cool my desire…'_

How long had they been apart? Why is she _starving_ for this? What the hell happens next—Emma needs to know. Even as she presses against Regina, pulls her hard toward her hips…

What is happening?

Emma rocks forward as Regina reaches back and turns to meet Emma's mouth.

"Was he good?" Emma can't help but ask. It burns in her like acid, this wave of jealousy.

"No." Regina admits after a moment. "He was only a good distraction…"

If Emma nips a little harder at Regina's skin then, it is obvious that the act is done in order to mark her. She breaks the clasp on the front of Regina's bra and before that, sends buttons flying. Then her hands are roughly palming firm mounds, kneading in rhythm as she sucks and bites…

"Not so hard on my neck. I think…yeah, I'm not so into that anymore."

"Right, sorry, yeah." Emma replies breathlessly. It is sort of funny, in a way. Not the death and stuff but the whole nerdy vampire thing. As if. Vampires in Storybrooke.

"Are you going to keep giggling or are you going to fuck me?"

"No, wait. I want to…" There is a rush of heat and Emma is suddenly blushing dark red and stammering. She wants to lay down somewhere. She wants to take her time and she wants to somehow slow all of this down.

They end up in Regina's bed, clothes strewn along the way. For whatever reason, Emma can't stop kissing and stroking Regina's throat—like she wants to soothe something, some bad energy that circles her there. She trails her lips along Regina's chest, cups her breasts, spreads her thighs and settles between them.

Before she can give in to whatever pleasure might come, Regina yanks her up and over, reaches between them, and begins to stroke Emma. It doesn't take long. Emma's thighs open and she drops her head onto the pillow, letting her clit be stroked and pinched and rubbed until she shakes and sighs…

…and promptly finds herself shoved off the bed.

They stare balefully at one another, energy bouncing off every part of them.

Then Emma uses magic to pick up the bedside table and throw it from the window. Regina screams at her and slaps her, hard, on her arms and once on her face, before Emma pins her down on the bed.

Regina's screams turn to sobs. She tries to get rid of Emma, tries to hit her again, but then her sobs turn to wailing. Her mother is gone and she is lost and broken and nothing will feel right again…

…the anguished crying jag lasts an hour. Regina's grief is cold and jagged with despair and this time, Emma doesn't leave. She stays still, watches for a moment, then when Regina turns away from her and continues to rock back and forth with her knees at her chest, she covers her with a blanket…and then her own arm…

In the morning, when they wake up in the same position they had fallen asleep in—Emma's arm still around Regina's waist, Regina's legs still crunched up to her chest, Emma mutters, "Why can't I stay the fuck away from you?"

Then there is something in Regina's eyes then that screams of her final defeat. Now her eyes flash dark green and she shows Emma her back.

"I've decided to see Manhattan for myself." Regina whispers in the new day.

"Fine." Is Emma's only response. She slides out of bed and dresses dejectedly, walking out of Regina's life for what feels like the last time.

Over the next year, there are few mentions of Regina Mills. The only one who talks about Regina is, oddly enough, Mary Margaret.

She weeps over Regina and one night, Emma hears her tell David about how desperately she wanted Regina to forgive her. For Daniel but now, even more, for Cora. Hearing this confession makes Emma feel so powerless…

In a rage unlike anything she has ever experienced, Emma slams into her yellow car, floors it through town, and drives straight up the pathway of Regina's house. The shrubs stop her, like some magical defense, so she gets out and with a surge of energy, tries to burn down the Mills mansion. She wants to destroy Regina's lineage and legacy in Storybrooke but more than that, she wants to burn their failed attempts at redemption and forgiveness and whatever other things they've been denied.

It is August who interrupts her.

Her cheeks are wet and her eyes burn from the heat of the flames that seem only to burn in a faint layer around the house without actually penetrating it.

"You won't be able to finish the place off." His voice is cheerful, despite Emma's anguish, and despite the fact that half of his limbs are still made of wood and he looks as thought he's in pain.

"Fuck you _kindling_." Emma spits out, even though she's momentarily happy to see him up and about. "You look like it, you know. Don't tempt me…"

He laughs his ass off at being called 'kindling' and makes her come with him for a drink.

So Emma doesn't burn down the House of Mills.

Instead, she takes Henry to Manhattan for a week long vacation.

Which doesn't work out, because the last person to see Regina—her landlord for the better part of the past year—informs Emma that she moved on.

"I think you'll have to go to California." He guesses, based on something Regina had said about wanting to see the other end of the country. "Try LA." He laughs and his teeth glint in the sunlight and then he says,

"Follow the Yellow Brick Road…"


	8. Chapter 8

****so I wrote this quickly one day, after becoming annoyed with the direction that the actual show was taking. It's un-beta'ed because my beta is very thorough and I have ten other stories to give her before wasting her time with this meandering tale. I have an ending in mind now, so once the Season 2 finale happens, I'll work on that****

**The Fall of the House of Mills: **

**Eventual Wonderland. **

The new beginnings within new beginnings within different time periods, bring Emma and Regina together in many interesting ways. Once upon a time, in Wonderland, they had promised never to part. No matter how long it took, Emma would always return to Regina's side—would always protect her. The gist of it all, was that Regina would also protect Emma. No matter what the odds.

In one possibility within other possibilities, they searched for their missing son, still wary of their feelings toward one another.

They end up on Captain Hook's ship, where time stretches oddly, and where their child's absence tortures their waking moments.

Regina wishes she'd brought more clothing. As does Emma. Especially since the whole sex without strings thing starts an embarrassingly short time into their voyage. It is…strangely comfortable and not as surprising as either woman would have thought.

Ok, so maybe the ride on Hook's _vessel_ (a word he always makes into something really dirty somehow) isn't that long. But Emma and Regina are both nervous wrecks, worrying ceaselessly about their son. Every second stretches on and on. If Regina isn't hovering near Snow, wringing her hands, then she's pestering Emma with trivia about the ship. Within an hour, Emma knows every type of wood that now suspends them in water, and ever which way to tie a knot when needed.

_It_ happens after an afternoon of stupid questions from a bored and anxious Regina. Questions about songs and musical artists, donuts and other dessert foods, cars and transportation routes in various American cities, and finally, past lovers, all of which are designed merely to distract the distraught mother in Henry's absence.

"I'm not…" Emma shakes her head. "No, I'm not answering…" But it's dark and Regina doesn't see the crimson hint of her cheeks or the way she averts her eyes.

"Come on. I'm only asking because I honestly can't stop talking and I need…" Regina swallows hard and reaches to touch Emma's chin. "I need to hear your voice for some reason." They're side by side in the small bed that they had to share after Emma toppled out of the hammock originally intended for her and refused to use it again.

This makes Emma chuckle. "You need to hear my voice talking about cars and sex and Bruce Springsteen?" She can see the vigorous nod, along with other tics of anxiety, even in the darkness. The fear that bleeds off of Regina's form is matched by her own, but her coping mechanisms are very, very different. Fucking donuts are the last fucking thing on Emma's fucking mind when stress peaks like this. And the questions about sex aren't helping.

And Regina damn well knows it. When she decides that Emma's version of stress management is better than her own, she waves away the inevitable protest and asks,

"What else do you think sailors out to sea do with their spare time?"

Emma laughs really hard now, because they've been out to sea for all of ten hours, but it backfires, because Regina's sense of humor is really odd and she doesn't take teasing well. "No, wait, ok. You're saying…" Damn. But hadn't she done something like this herself once? With an old roommate, after a drunken night of complaining that they weren't getting laid enough.

"I'm saying, _why_ on earth _not_?" Regina pauses. "Give me twenty good reasons and I'll stop talking about it."

Of course Emma can't come up with twenty good reasons not to slide her hand into Regina's pants, and she can think of even less not to let herself have the kind of pleasure she hasn't had in…well, nearly a year. Over a year if she's actually honest with herself.

It's good. It's also awkward because Regina keeps asking questions, this time even more specific. Such as:

"Did you know that your clitoris angles just a little to the right? No, left. My right. Your left. I don't…"

"Omigod, please be quiet…" Emma is humping the hand that cups her and she's putting way too much weight into it. The wine they had with dinner helps her to block out the reality of the situation but it also contributes to a pleasant body buzz. When she comes, she hears Regina yelps and has to apologize for nearly breaking her wrist.

But when she touches Regina for the first time, something changes in a more substantial way. Emma feels something shift and swoop and turn all upside down inside of her head and her heart and her 'lower regions' (which Regina keeps calling her own pussy which is really sort of hilarious). She lays carefully beside Regina, touches the groove of her hips lightly, then delves in, trying to figure out when exactly she's supposed to go for the clit, and whether she might spend a little more time just in soft, warm wetness. The smell of Regina hits her senses—heady, rich—and her heart misses a beat. She swallows hard when the first rush of thick liquid allows her to swirl her forefinger just on the little nub of Regina's clit when she gently pushes back the hood of soft skin atop it. Emma presses there a moment, feeling a pulse beat, and then continues to move gently, finding whatever places make Regina shake or sigh or bite her lower lip. All while Regina just sort of gazes at some place over Emma's shoulder, like she's trying not to let on how it all feels. Emma finds a rhythm and strokes with just her middle finger, propping herself up on her free arm to watch. When Regina cums, it makes Emma feel _really_ accomplished. She lays back with a grin.

After that, when one or both are in the mood, they climb into bed wearing only t-shirts. It happens a lot, because they also refuse to do any of the chores required on board and since they're so freaked out about what lies ahead, retreating to their room for 'rest' seems very, very important.

"Your clit really is a little to the right…" Regina says clit because she knows that Emma gets turned off by _clitoris_.

"Stop telling me that! It is not!" Emma squeaks and tries to squirm away.

"Just let me use something other than my hand. I want to figure out the best angle…"

Emma gives in because something about Regina's tone when she's ordering her around is sort of hot.

As hot as her breath when it brushes against Emma's pussy.

And then there is only this feeling of warm and aching want as Regina's tongue laves…

…Regina moans a little but catches herself and Emma does the same…

_This_…this is…this is more than anything…anything Emma has ever experienced. She realizes it just as she arches and cums, riding each wave with her hand poised, trembling, just beside Regina's head, wanting to touch, to press, but not wanting to push anything too far.

"Your turn?" Emma asks weakly as Regina shakes her head, turns her on her side, and settles in for sleep just behind her.

"I already did." Regina mutters.

Emma's response is to jolt awake again, the realization cutting through her sleepy afterglow. "Oh. While you were…" She receives an embarrassed sounding 'yes' and understands that she really needs to stop. But she can't. It's too much of a revelation. "What did you…did you touch yourself?" Emma turns over and faces Regina, their noses almost touching. She wants to feel it, all at once—the effect she's had over another person. Especially a person as formidable and immovable as Regina. She reaches and finds that Regina is soaking wet. The soft cry of pleasure Emma receives in return is enough to spur her into movement.

She's at Regina's knees before she hears the question:

"Have you ever done this before?"

Emma shakes her head and kisses her way around Regina's thighs before they part for her. "No." Her old roommate had been really reluctant to take things 'too far'. Apparently, eating pussy was 'too far' but fingering wasn't—who could keep up with such things. "It's ok. I'll figure it out…" She mumbles before pressing her lips to the source of mysterious and decadent scents she can't help but revisit when no one is looking. It doesn't take very long before her tongue finds the perfect rhythm on Regina's pussy—pressed flat to her labia then dragging lightly over and in circles around and around her clit. This time they both cry out. Emma doesn't cum, but she feels herself clench inside.

Then Emma is up again, hovering over Regina, wanting more. She asks "Can you…" Regina nods and starts stroking her clit while Emma stays above her, thrusting until she finishes again. "That's a good angle." Regina sounds scientific again and Emma knows that they're ok. She laughs and rolls back over, finally finding sleep.

But of course they're just stressed out. Worried about Henry, worried about whatever lay in wait for them. That was it and that was all.

Emma finds herself so horribly anxious about it all one afternoon that she flirts with Hook, only it's Hook flirting with her and it isn't her fault, but Regina is sullen and distant for a short while.

Which is fine, because Emma's sudden, unexpected response when she sees Regina speaking to a particularly attractive, rugged, stubbled, dark haired, _stupid_, annoying member of Hook's stupid, _annoying_ crew, is far more toxic and furious than Regina's jealousy ever was.

Emma feels a flash of anger, wonders how she might flip the guy over the side when the exact thing happens. He suddenly flies up in the air and nearly over before two men grab him. He stares accusingly at Regina, but Regina has already noticed the look on Emma's face and is gaping at her. Thankfully, pretty boy leave them alone after that. When Emma corners Regina in their room an hour later, they don't say a word for a long time. They just fuck, hard and fast, against the door, while Emma keeps a hand against Regina's throat. Afterward, she feels shame—not because of the sex but because of that hand. Like she was trying to own Regina. Claim her. She feels such shame she doesn't notice the odd, knowing looks that Regina gives her, or the desire written all over Regina's face when she brushes her fingers over the places where Emma's touch still burns.

Jealousy freaks Emma out more than anything. There is a moment when she considers actually sleeping with Hook. To test the whole jealousy thing. They have wine and talk beneath the stars on one magical night…

…and then Regina shows up, takes one look at them both, and uses magic to bend Hook's hook all out of shape. The symbolism is obvious to all who witness it.

When they return to their room, Emma remains completely silent. For some reason, she wants to apologize. But no way. This isn't a thing. It can't be. How can it be? Her thoughts remain fractured and simplistic and she wonders how to broach the subject, when she realizes that Regina is totally undressing in front of her.

She watches for a full minute before she realizes that her legs are shaking so hard she can barely stand, and Regina is crying even as she struggles to unclasp her bra. Emma just steps close and embraces the sobbing woman and tells her again and again that they're going to find Henry. They're going to find their son.

"_Our_ son." Regina mutters against Emma's collarbone. "Ours." For the first time since they set sail, she finally relaxes.

That night, they dream separately about strange places where they will eventually travel. Regina dreams that she takes a new throne—no longer the White Queen, but the Queen of Hearts. Changed as she is by the centuries, Regina no longer wishes for purity of vision or goodness. Besides, her mother had unfinished business in Wonderland, which Regina must attend to.

Emma dreams of elves and crocodiles and of searching for a portal through which she might see Regina's face a little more clearly.

**Storybrooke: **

**Fairy Magic**

There is too much time travel, portal travel, and different mixes of magic for the Mills and Charmings to keep track of. Too much for one lifetime and therefore too many realities. Yet each thread becomes as necessary as the next. They simply split a timeline and a place they must travel to, and mirror it elsewhere. Their fates remain remarkably similar.

After determining that she will never win Henry's love again—in a world that sees Regina nearly poison him after trying to put his other mother into an enchanted sleep alongside all of her other misdeeds, murders and dark magical manipulations—Regina leaves her son's care to his biological family. She doesn't entirely want to do so, but they insist, and she cannot bring herself to admit the depths of her guilt and so doesn't argue for him back.

There comes a time when Regina tries to walk away from Henry, after they rescue him from some idiot who wanted revenge against her. She makes the mistake of doing so, of trying to leave, when he is right there next to her.

Storybrooke's enchanted boundary leaves most without their memory. Regina doesn't lose memory, only magic.

And when outside threats managed to kidnap her son, hide him from her, and eventually nearly kill him, she decides that magic is no longer of much use.

She had killed them. Of course. What else should she do, with the boy in danger and Emma screaming in her ear?

It hadn't even shocked Snow White. She had nodded at Regina, even as the hearts were crushed in hand. Somehow her terrible deed had been like swallowing poison—containing it even as she used it to kill others—and it had made the do-gooders realize something about Regina…that _she_ would always be the only person capable of doing what needed to be done.

Except that now, with so much regret weighing on her, Regina didn't want that kind of acceptance. Why should she be the one to take on such evil?

"Did you kill my father?" The boy—he still seemed a boy to Regina—had asked tearfully. What was worse even, than the look in his eyes, was the look in Henry's. She was a murderer. He already knew as much but this was a painful reminder.

"Yes. I do apologize, however. Sincerely, this time." Her voice sounded dull in her ear. She felt suddenly quite sick, worse than ever before, as her hand plunged into Greg's chest. His heart reminded her of that damned unicorn. It felt like failure.

Moments after their return to Storybrooke, Regina makes a decision. She decides to leave. For good. With Snow White as her witness.

Unfortunately, she tries to _walk_ away, which makes it all very complicated and needlessly dramatic.

Regina does not expect Henry to chase after her after she sends him to Emma. He latches onto her arm like a trained monkey, drags his heels, screams at her. The idiots who watch with gaping mouths note, of course, that Regina doesn't try to hurt Henry, even when he starts to hit her. She simply takes his hands in her own, then wraps her arms around him and carries him like the infant he has not been in a very long time. Regina plunks the boy next to Emma once again and crosses the boundary once again. Her feet ache within minutes but she does not want to stop.

"Hey, wait!" Emma's voice this time.

Dammit. Emma's silly, puppy-dog, yapping voice. Why does it always have this effect, Regina thinks to herself vaguely. Her hands are jammed in her coat pocket. She is trying to get far enough not to start crying the way she knows she will. It will be embarrassing. The loss of Henry. The one thing she had never anticipated. If she lets herself think too hard, she'll never go—never give him what he deserves. A real family, a real mother, one who isn't as fucked up as Regina…

The sobbing starts too soon. What the _hell_. She doesn't even have a ride, and Emma has already intercepted her.

"This is stupid. Come back. We'll talk, ok? I'm sorry I haven't talked you about him. I've never seen him like that, he's still crying. Come back, ok? Look…" Emma turns her but she can't see Henry double over because she's too far now. Magic had worked at least well enough to propel her half a mile out of town. She looks at the road beneath their feet and for just a moment, it looks yellow. Then it's just plain grey concrete again and Emma shakes her head. Regina's arm is warm and solid beneath her fingers.

Somehow Regina ends up back at Snow's ugly little apartment. There, Henry cries until he throws up, then refuses to speak to any of them for the rest of the day and into the night.

"You've done terrible things, Regina!" David—why isn't he James any longer, Regina can't remember—tries to remind her, only to be glared at by the two women closest to him. Emma mutters something in her father's ear about being constructive, for the kid's sake, while Regina stares at Snow.

Her head tilts to the side. "You understand now." Regina says quietly.

The four pause, wondering what should come next. Snow simply nods, she and Regina exchange some odd, dark look, and then there is a flash of something green.

"What the hell was that?" Emma growls. The sound is oddly enticing and Regina smirks at her.

"What was what?" Regina honestly hasn't a clue. She sips her tea and wonders about the honeybees. Do they cross the boundary? She hopes they're safe in doing so. The thought leads to another green flash. This time she notices. "Oh." Regina says.

"Your eyes." Snow jumps to her feet, slamming her chair back and over in the process. "They're green. Regina, what the fuck is happening?"

This makes Regina laugh heartily. "Such language from the schoolteacher!" For some reason the laughter continues. "Oh my." She wipes tears from her eyes. "I might be hysterical. You said 'fu…fu…'" The giggling continues though and she can't finish.

"Was that pot tea?" Emma peers into Regina's now empty cup and sees a tea leaf, escaped from the little silver holder they use when they're steeping loose leaf tea. "Why am I so enthralled by this tea?" Emma wonders aloud. The leaf is shaped strangely, like a smiling elf. She hears something, just in her right ear...

…_follow the yellow brick road…_

There is another green flash.

… _you're off to see the Wizard…_

Continuous, curling through the air, like thin smoke, searching for its other.

Snow and Regina are connected by the light and neither looks surprised. David searches for his gun, of course, which makes both women smile. Emma just waits. And waits.

Thirty seconds later, the light dissipates.

They hold their hands to their chests. Snow White and the Evil Queen smile at one another, exchanging some private piece of information.

"You're not to leave." Snow orders Regina around but it doesn't seem to bother the other woman. "Henry's angry for now, but he'll be ok by morning. Stay the night."


	9. Chapter 9

**Follow the Yellow Brick Road.**

There is no yellow brick road. It's all a sham, a distraction, or maybe just a joke, but Emma and Henry spend nearly a month looking for some version of the thing. The closest they come to finding it is on their last day in New York on their way back from California, when Henry spots a trail of yellow paint cans outside their cabin door.

"How did they get there?" He asks Emma. They've taken this weird little cabin in an even weirder resort. Henry had already been saying, for days and days, that his dreams held all kinds of clues. "My mom is somewhere nearby," he says with a smile. The trip had been less taxing for him. Emma, on the other hand, could sleep for a week without a problem.

Two minutes after Henry walks outside to kick the paint cans, Regina calls him to see how things are.

"Where are you?" He shouts. He isn't angry, the reception is just bad. "What? Wait, where?" He turns to Emma, still shouting, and exclaims, "She's calling from a boat!"

Emma snatches the phone away and yells into it, "Goddammit where are you and who was that idiot? The one who thinks you're Dorothy."

On the other end of the line, Regina sighs dramatically but Emma can tell that she's trying not to laugh. "I have no idea. He was probably some red herring, sent by the universe to throw you off my track." She sniffs when Emma growls with displeasure at the lie. "It's fate, darling, and fate has an odd sense of humor…"

"Where. Are. You." Gritting her teeth, Emma asks again. It feels like years and years since she saw Regina and she can't help the ache in her chest at the thought of seeing her again.

Regina has the audacity to laugh. "Don't take that tone with me, Ms. Swan. I'm living on a boat in Boston. It's been…interesting…and I met someone…"

There is a painful swooping feeling at that one. Emma's voice is quiet, defeated. "I'm tired. I'm hungry. My ass hurts. Henry and I have been on the road for weeks. And you were right next to Maine, the whole fucking time…" Emma slumps and stares at her boots.

Something in her voice evokes pity. Regina's voice softens, "Check yourselves into The Lenox. I'll meet you both there tonite." She rhymes off the numbers on her credit card and Emma grumpily tells Henry so he can write it all down.

The rest of their drive is pretty quiet. They take their time, stopping to take pictures of birds or trees or roadside attractions or whatever else the chattering kid wants to see. Emma doesn't say much. Henry starts to shoot worried glances her way by the time they stop at a diner to eat a late lunch. Emma orders only soda and drinks it slowly while Henry wolfs down a cheeseburger.

Her credit card is good for two rooms at the fancy fucking hotel Regina has made them check into. She was certainly tempted to actually use Regina's resources, but pride stops her. Emma gets her own room, maxing her card out for a bit of privacy. She showers and falls face first on the bed, waking only when the front desk calls to announce _her majesty_'s arrival.

Regina knocks quietly, like she knows Emma's pissed. When the door opens, she blurts out, "I bought baseball tickets today." She looks tanned and her eyes are practically lit up with excitement. She also smells really good, like cedar smoke. The way she saunters into the room and sits on the room's small couch, with her feet tucked under her, makes Emma's skin heat up.

"Oh yeah? You bringing your new…whoever…to the game?" Shaking her head and moving away from the other woman, Emma fumes, slamming around her room, trying to find the glasses for the overpriced wine she frees from the mini-fridge. She feels groggy, disoriented.

"What? No. What are you talking about." Regina pauses, probably remembering that she mentioned something about someone in her life. She examines her nails and then shrugs. "We've…parted ways." Her gaze is challenging so Emma doesn't ask if they parted ways just that afternoon or what. "Why, are you jealous?" The look is hopeful now.

They stare silently at one another for a minute before Regina sheepishly looks away.

Then Emma gives in. Regina obviously isn't great at the whole relationship thing—any more than she herself is. She goes to grab a second glass to split the wine with Henry's pain-in-the-ass other-mother.

Of course Regina has her own room. She also has unending financial resources, it would seem, being that her mother was able to weave straw into gold and all, so she keeps the room despite falling into Emma's bed night.

It starts with an argument. Something about bickering seems to get Regina's juices flowing or whatever. Emma calls her a nutcase and Regina laughs in her face. Then, when Emma is at the window, Regina sneaks up behind and turns her. She places Emma's hand against her throat and gives her a challenging look.

"You need it rough?" Emma's voice is hoarse. She's still tired. She has no intention of hurting Regina, and doesn't get turned on by the idea, but the desire in Regina's eyes and the warmth of her skin is all too enticing. She can't help the smirk that curves across her lips when she adds, "I thought about burning down your house, you know."

"That's annoying." Regina scowls. She shoves Emma backwards onto the bed and begins to undress, revealing tan lines as she goes.

Emma reaches and traces one particularly enticing line, just above the curve of Regina's breasts, before undoing her own jeans. When Regina tries to go down on her right away, she nudges her chin up and kisses her deeply. "Mine." She mumbles and bites those full, perfect lips.

"Yes." Is all Regina says, but she looks painfully turned on now. Their kisses grow gentler but when Regina opens her mouth to let Emma's tongue delve fully inside, there is renewed urgency. She is fully naked, grinding against Emma's jeans, her hands firm on Emma's shoulders.

Emma keeps one hand around Regina's throat, thumbing her pulse gently. She feels trusted—knows she's trusted—and the thought of Regina's faith in her makes Emma want to savor this. She pulls away to undress slowly and gives Regina a show while she knees between her knees. "Wait," She says, when that wicked mouth moves over her torso. She thumbs her lover's chin and takes another kiss—deeper, warmer, and full of everything she feels. Earlier jealousies aside, Emma just wants Regina close. The sheets are cool as she presses the other woman to the bed and covers Regina's body with her own. Blunt nails dig into her back as her thigh slides against the wetness of Regina's pussy and Emma moans against Regina's tongue. She needs this. Needs this infuriating, stunning woman.

"I love you," Regina is the first to say, surprising them both.

Later, there is a moment—with Regina is on top, three fingers roughly thrusting inside of her while Emma's legs are practically on top of the other woman's shoulders which is an oddly intimate and yet visually ridiculous position—when Emma wonders about the trick that was just played on her.

"Were there…really other people?" Emma asks this in between embarrassing moaning noises. She wants it deeper and doesn't care about the grimace that says Regina's wrist is hurting. "Was it…all about absence…making the heart grow…" She breathes deeply, "…fonder?"

"No." Regina kisses her and shifts a little. She is quiet when she adds, "There weren't any other people. I was alone on a boat. And yes, it was…as you say…" Then she resumes fucking the woman beneath her, curling her fingers upward.

"You missed me." Emma interrupts with a smile. She caresses Regina's wrist, cups her hand, arches her back and comes with a long groan.

They pause, breathing hard, but then Regina grabs for Emma's wrist and thrusts it between her own legs. Then she rolls onto her side, bending one knee up, and reaches between Emma's legs. This time she touches her lightly, talking while they fuck. "I'm glad you didn't burn down my home. I have a strange feeling about that house."

Emma bites her lip and tries to concentrate. "Yeah?"

"Yes, it's as though…" Regina's chest flushes and she bites her lip before continuing. Emma's thumb is rhythmic but light against her clit and she grabs at that wrist.

"As though?" Emma's eyes are intent on Regina's own.

"Unnnhhh…" A rare loss of control as Regina's eyes close. She bites her lower lip and her cunt clenches wetly, warmly around Emma's fingers. Their lips meet firmly and then she says, "as though we were meant to make a home there…"

"Oh…_Regina_…" There is anguish in Emma's voice, but it mixes strangely with some deep desire, as images of things she'd never dared hope for move through her mind. Her hand moves faster and she watches intently as Regina comes for her.

Then all conversation ends when they both decide that they've missed a whole lot of other things about one another.

Later, while Emma sleeps with her right arm slung over Regina chest, practically pinning her in place, she has a dream about the mansion. In it, she can see Regina walking through each room, tearing it down as she goes. Behind Regina, there is another woman. Emma can't see her face clearly, but she wears a red dress and a masquerade mask.

The next day starts again really stupidly early. Henry and Regina are too excited to see one another, so they force Emma out into the still dreary weather at an obscene hour. Breakfast and late morning coffee, precede their baseball game. Flipping through the paper, Emma occasionally watches their kid sort through his new pile of comics. She's amused to see that Regina reads every one of Henry's comics just after he does.

After the hot dogs (for Henry) and beer (for Emma) at the game, Regina makes them eat a healthy dinner. She also makes sure that Henry behaves like a fairly decent dinner guest. He seems happy to actually follow a few rules. It's a small realization for Emma, but a significant one—that showing the kid caring through setting boundaries might actually work well for them.

It isn't, in the end, at all difficult for Henry to talk Regina into returning with them. Emma smirks knowingly.

"You're so certain, that no matter what games I play, I'll always return to you." Regina informs her much later, while they finish showering together and ready themselves for bed.

"You weren't playing games, you were running away. There's a difference." Emma rubs her arms and steps from the shower. Outside the living room window, the rain looks cold and the wind whips a row of flimsy looking fruit trees planted in the distance. Pulling on a robe she ties it closed and asks, "Why did you call when you did?"

"I'm honestly not sure. I just had an urge. An instinct." Regina tightens her own robe and opens a bottle of beer, handing it to Emma with a tense smile.

Regina falls asleep in front of the fireplace. Emma covers her with a blanket and watches her awhile. She wonders about the memories that haunt the woman, and whether she'll ever get the full story…about anything, really. They're so close to one another and yet quickly can seem so far away. No matter what else happens, it's being together that gives at least a little assurance—a constant in their tumultuous lives.

They are on the outskirts of the city the next day, when Emma asks about Oz.

"What an odd subject." Regina sighs and looks away, out the passenger side window, at rain clouds that seem to be gathering fast.

"Are you Dorothy?" Emma asks again. When her hand settles on the gearshift, Regina touches it lightly.

"Yeah, are you?" Henry shouts from the backseat where he's listening to music, playing a video game, and glancing at two comics at once.

"How did you even hear that?" Emma shouts back. The hand atop her own squeezes and moves away. "Turn down your music for _gods_…" She loses control of the wheel momentarily but rights the car as fast as she can.

"Ok…" Regina pats her thigh now. "I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to freak out and stop trusting me again."

"I…but…" Emma grumbles and grips the steering wheel tightly. She frowns and peers upward. "A huge storm is coming."

"Yes." Comes the bland reply. Then there's a pregnant pause. Regina adds, "You never should have brought up Oz." There is another pause, and a buzzing sound, like a phone. Regina fishes it from her jacket pocket, presses the green 'on' button, and waits.

Emma hears something shouted on the other end. It sounds like _'enchanted box'_. A woman's voice, loud and demanding, informs Regina that they need to fix something, some great problem, involving Rumpelstiltskin.

"Who was that?" Henry shouts, again caught up in his varying technologies.

With a resigned and not at all surprised sigh, Regina replies, "That was my mother, Henry. She'll be meeting us in Storybrooke…"


End file.
